IronCupcake:Leeds – Very Berry

Tasted good, but looked a little flat!

I keep saying to myself this IronCupcake will be my last, and I said it this time – I even said I was just going to take the photo’s, but then Zoe goes and announces the next months theme and I know if I can I’ll be there.

This month it was ‘Very Berry’ and you can see all the details of the competiton at the beautifully newly designed site – http://ironcupcakeleeds.co.uk/ and more of my images here.

I toyed with the idea of a summer berry black forest gateaux, but after discussions with my nannan on one of my visits we decided something lighter might be better, so I went with a berry and lemon cake.About a day after that decision someone posted this recipe on twitter {I would love to credit them but I opened it, saved it and forgot – slapped wrist!}

Its from Edible magazine, which after a bit of Googling I discovered is a foodie mag in Brighton. I followed the recipe to the T and I was super impressed. Really lemony flavoured sponge {before and after baking – whaaaaaaaat? of course I licked the bowl afterwards, and the whisks and the spoon!} and it was really quite light too.

For the frosting I kind of winged it and that might be why the frosting you see in the image above is a little, well, meh.

• Firstly I blended a frozen box of Morribobs mixed summer berries {I’ve still got quite a lot left to make sorbet with}. Probably I should have waited until they defrosted, but hey. I didn’t. 
• I then mixed a cup of blended berries with half-ish of a block of butter. Again, should maybe have not added half frozen fruit to butter, but what the……It took a LOT of mixing by the boy. And warming up too. At this stage it kind of looked curdled. 
• Next I poured about 5 cups of icing sugar into the butter/berries combo. This made the whole thing a little better and more like a frosting. But not perfect. So I kept adding icing sugar. I have no idea quite how much. I would rather not think about it. 
• It still didn’t fully harden, so it got refrigerated for a LONG time.

If I were you, and making a berry frosting, I would follow a recipe. Who knew icing sugar, butter and berries could go wrong? Hmmmmmm. Not me.

Once I was bored of waiting, and the frosting seemed thicker and more set, I iced the cakes. They didn’t look too bad. Until I got in the car with them. Hot car + dubious frosting = splurge.

Once again I didn’t place {totally NOT bitter. At all} But my friend said they tasted good, and one particularly classy friend did spoon up the mixture off the platter at the end of the competition, but she’s a bit like that.

So there are my Lemon – Berry cupcakes. The verdict = tasted lovely/looked manky.

{P.s. Next month is cocktails. The theme I have been waiting for. Unfortunately the boy is plannign things for us so we might not be here!}