Sort ingredients
cupcakealchemy
QR Code
Listen
Pdf
This recipe yields 12 lemon cupcakes filled with lemon curd, a rosemary swiss meringue buttercream infused with fresh herbs and rosemary simple syrup. Each cupcake is topped with shortbread + a sparkly spring of sugared rosemary. It might feel fuckin weird for you to bite straight into a sprig of an herb as potently flavored as fresh rosemary, but trust me OK? When you sugar the shit out of it, it becomes straight up mouth-poppable.
Lemon curd is a listed ingredient however you have the option of jarred or fresh. This book doesn't contain a recipe for lemon curd, it contains a recipe for cranberry curd for my cranberry coffins but this is already a five element fucking cupcake and you just don't need to make scratch curd unless you want to. You're already making cake, an intermediate level buttercream, a cookie, a syrup, and a fucking rosemary garnish for this shit. Calm down. Unless you don't want to calm down and then just go ahead and make the lemon curd. I'm not gonna crawl out of the cookbook and stop you.
Here's a suggested order of preparation so that you don't have a million things happening at once and get overwhelmed. If you're making the lemon curd from scratch, definitely knock that shit out first so that it has time to chillax before you assemble your cupcakes.
Make the Rosemary syrup + crystallized rosemary.
Prepare shortbread dough and put it away to chill.
Prepare and bake the cupcakes while shortbread chills.
Bake the shortbread.
Make the buttercream.
Fill with curd and assemble!
Ok that's enough of a preamble for me, just read the fuckin recipe.
BAKES TWELVE LITTLE UNFAIRLY DELICIOUS BASTARDS // TAKES A FUCKING WHILE. HOURS. IF YOU'RE BRINGING THEM TO SOMETHING IMPORTANT, MAKE THEM THE DAY BEFORE. OTHERWISE LIKE. NO. JUST DONT GODDAMN MAKE THEM THE DAY OF.
SOME QUICK SHIT ABOUT THE SYRUP AND WHATEVER: The syrup is for making the buttercream later, but you're simultaneously using it to coat the fresh rosemary for the topping. If you've made simple syrup before you might remember that the ratio of sugar to water is traditionally 1:1. Well not this time, mother fuckers. I want it thicker. I don't know why. I just do. Two parts sugar, one part water. You're gonna end up with over a cup of syrup. The buttercream calls for less than ¼ cup, I'm not gonna lie to you right now. You're gonna have leftovers. This is a non-issue. Make rosemary lemonade, cocktails, mocktails, use it to soak some cake layers later that week, give a jar of it to a friend. Look visibly guilty and frightened while you're handing it to them like it's their problem now and they're gonna realize why REAL fast. Obviously nothing will happen. Except rosemary lemonade. Oh my God I'm just talking again now, I'm sorry. Let's make syrup.
By the way for the syrupy parts you will need at least 12 little rosemary pieces to top the cupcakes later, and the other 4 little bits can just hang out in the leftover syrup jar and look rustic and pretty. I don't give a shit. But we're infusing all of it together and then taking out twelve of the rosemary pieces to roll in sugar and harden. Just saying.
ROSEMARY SYRUP + SPARKLING SUGARED ROSEMARY
In a small pot, heat ½ cup of water over low-medium heat until hot but not boiling. Heating the water before adding the sugar lets it heat up faster and dissolve your sugar more easily.
Add 1 cup granulated sugar and rosemary sprigs and stir to get it all combined.
You're not boiling this. You're only cooking it until the sugar is fully melted into the water and dissolved. The syrup shouldn't look cloudy or grainy or any other way that indicates you didn't dissolve your sugar properly.
Let it warm and dissolve over low-medium heat for like 10 ish minutes. The rosemary is infusing. Don't boil that shit, I'm serious.
Using a slotted spoon, remove 12 bits of rosemary from the syrup, or strain it through mesh into a heatproof container. Your personal decisions are your business.
Set the syrupy rosemary pieces on a piece of parchment paper on a sheet pan or something to sit there and get sticky and tacky in the next 20-30 minutes. Once they're set to sticky tacky, roll them in white sugar to coat them and set them aside to harden fully for later. Lay them out. Don't pile them. They'll stick together. It's syrup.
THE SHORTBREAD
Cream together butter, vanilla, and sugar with a paddle attachment until smooth.
Scrape down bowl and add all of your flour at once, plus your salt. Mix on low. It's gonna be crumbly. Kick it up to medium speed. First it will look powdery and incorrect. Then it will begin to smooth out. The dough might look loose and make you raise your eyebrow like "this feels dry and incorrect." It's gonna be cohesive soon, I promise.
Dump that shit onto a good sized sheet of clingwrap and fight with it until it's a tightly wrapped rectangular prism. Don't make it super girthy. If your prism is 3' thick, your cookies are going to be three inches wide on top of your cupcakes because you're slicing them from that diameter. Three inches doesn't sound big but on a cupcake it's fucking huge. Try to roll it into a fairly skinny log. Don't exceed like. 2". I dunno.
Chill the dough prism for like 45 minutes to an hour. Personally, I'd get started now on the cakes while it's chilling! But yeah preheat oven to 350f, slice the dough into ½' thick slices, and bake for 12-14 minutes. Shortbread looks almost Not Done Yet when it's done. It's done. You might have extra cookies. Yay?
LEMON CAKE
Prepare a 12 count cupcake pan with liners and preheat oven to 350f
In a medium bowl, whisk to combine flour, baking powder, salt. As one does.
Cream the butter with the sugar and lemon zest on medium high until light and fluffy, about 3-5 mins. As one does. Scrape down the bowl.
Kick the speed down to medium and add the egg, vanilla, and sour cream. Beat until just combined. Scrape down the bowl again. I will crawl out of the cookbook after all if you don't.
Turn mixer to low speed. Add half of the flour mixture, then the milk and lemon juice, then the other half of the flour mixture. Mix until just combined.
Scoop into liners so they are about ¾ full, about 3 tbsp each.
Bake at 350f for 17-20 minutes, just until the tops of the cupcakes spring back when you poke them.
Let cool, then core out the cupcakes with the back of a piping tip or a cupcake corner and fill them with your lemon curd.
THE ROSEMARY SWISS MERINGUE BUTTERCREAM
Separate your eggs. AS ALWAYS WHEN MAKING MERINGUE - make sure your mixing bowl and mixing attachment are BOTH REALLY CLEAN. Be REALLY sure that not a SPECK of yolk ends up in your whites. Any fat in your mixture will prevent the meringue from coming together properly. It will be really sad. Eggs are easier to separate when cold. You can crack and separate your eggs one at a time into a small bowl and then add each one to the heat proof bowl so that if you mess up, you don't waste them all.
In a pot, simmer water over medium heat. Combine the egg whites and the granulated sugar in a heat proof bowl and set it on top. The bottom of bowl SHOULD NOT BE TOUCHING THE WATER. IT SHOULD ONLY BE GETTING STEAMED. I'M SORRY I'M YELLING. SMBC IS REALLY DRAMATIC AND YOU NEED TO KNOW THINGS FOR IT TO WORK.
Whisk sugar and egg whites together constantly until sugar is dissolved, mixture is slightly thinner, and it has a light froth on top (it should be heated to roughly 160f degrees and I really recommend having a thermometer handy for this.
When it's to proper temperature, Immediately add the mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer, still hot. Beat it on high with a balloon whisk attachment until a stiff meringue forms and MIXTURE IS NO LONGER WARM. I AM SO SERIOUS RIGHT NOW. BE SUPER PATIENT. IF EVEN THE BOWL IS STILL A LITTLE WARM WHEN YOU ADD YOUR BUTTER, YOU ARE MAKING SOUP. Whip it for 15 minutes at LEAST.
When your meringue is whipped and your mixture and bowl are BOTH fully cooled, switch your attachment to the paddle. Mixing at medium high speed, add the room temp butter one tablespoon at a time, mixing until fully combined after each addition. I like to count to 20 before adding the next tablespoon. Be. Patient.
After the last tablespoon of butter goes in, turn mixer down to medium and add the vanilla, chopped rosemary, and rosemary syrup. Beat until fully combined. Your buttercream should be beautifully silky smooth and stiff enough to pipe!
Assemble the cupcakes! Fill the lemon cake with lemon curd. Use my piping lesson from Cupcake Alchemy 101 at the beginning of this book to frost them! And then top with a drizzle of lemon curd, a shortbread cookie, and a piece of sparkling sugared rosemary!