Skip to main content

St David's Day Welsh Honey Cupcakes with Lemon Mascarpone Buttercream - Tiesen Mel


For those who don't know, St David's Day, on 1 March, is the national day of Wales. I've wanted to explore some traditional Welsh recipes for some time, but wanted to avoid the usual Welshcakes and Bara Brith ('speckled bread' - a fruit tea loaf). Traditionally, Tiesen Mel (honey cake) is made with cinnamon but as Mike doesn't like this, and my first batch therefore didn't get approval, I decided to play around and instead used vanilla. As I love making cupcakes, I also decided to make small versions and frost them, so in order to counteract what I anticipated would possibly be an overly sweet cake, I decided to use a lemon mascarpone buttercream (which in itself turned out perhaps a little sweeter than ideal). The result - Welsh Honey Cupcakes with Lemon Mascarpone Buttercream.

The cakes turned out fairly moist, almost fudgy, with a slightly toffee note where the sugar (I used soft light brown) and honey caramelised on the top. I really liked this contrast in textures, but Mike wasn't sure. We still thought they tasted nice.


Anyway, the inspiration for these was taken from a number of different recipes. I played around with the ingredients and measurements, so as much as anything, I think they probably are the first recipe I've developed myself. I hope you like them.

Ingredients (makes 12)

125g soft light brown sugar
125g softened unsalted butter
1 large egg
250g flour
1 tspn baking powder
1/2 tspn bicarbonate of soda
pinch salt
90ml buttermilk
80g clear honey
1 tspn vanilla bean paste (or extract)

For the frosting
100g softened unsalted butter
100g mascarpone
3 cups icing sugar, sifted
1 tspn lemon extract (I used Sainsbury's Sicilian Lemon extract)


Preheat the oven to 160 fan / 180 conventional. Prepare a 12 cup muffin pan.

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and mix well.


Place the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt in a mixing bowl. Whisk gently to mix and aerate.

Add in thirds to the butter and sugar mix, and alternate with the buttermilk in thirds. You will get a fairly loose batter.

Add the honey and vanilla and mix till incorporated.

Scoop into the cupcake cases and bake for 20 - 25 minutes until risen and springy to the touch.

Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes, then place on a wire rack to continue cooling.


Make the frosting by creaming together the butter and mascarpone, then add the sifted icing sugar to get the consistency you like. Add the lemon extract (you could simply use lemon juice). Use the frosting and decorate how you like.




These Welsh Honey Cupcakes are just perfect with an afternoon cup of tea. Enjoy.

Susie
Labels:

Comments

  1. Baking Addict21 February, 2012 22:45

    I love the sound of these especially the lemon mascarpone frosting and glitter makes everything better :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Susie @ Fold in the Flour22 February, 2012 13:53

      Thanks, I know what you mean. Love a bit of sparkle and glitter so easy to use! Love the colours you can get. :)

      Delete

Post a Comment

Your comments are very much appreciated.

Popular posts from this blog

Chocolate and Vanilla Polka Dot Cake

I love the magic of baking. Particularly when you cut into a fairly innocuous looking cake, and then get this (or at least something like it): Vanilla flavour polka dots, enrobed in chocolate sponge, sandwiched together with chocolate fudge icing, covered in vanilla buttercream, with a final topping of dark chocolate, dripping down the sides. And if all that tastes good, too, then I really shouldn't complain. But, I have to be honest. This cake did not go entirely to plan. And this is version two. And, if I make it again, I will definitely do some tweaking. The idea for the cake stemmed from this amazing cake by Deb at Once Upon a Pedestal . It was doing the rounds on Pinterest in January. Someone at work, who knows about my 'hobby' sent me the link. That was it - I was hooked. I started planning, as the idea of dots in a cake was screaming 'Red Nose Day' at me. I even ordered a cake pop pan so that I could execute my grand design. (And I hate ...
34 comments
Read more

Limoncello Cake

I really love this cake. I mean really love it. So much so, it's my new best friend. It's like sunshine on a plate. The citrussy aroma tempts you while the sultry lemony pucker hits you full in the mouth. And who can resist anything with 'Limoncello' in the title? The mere mention of the word transports you to to the Sicilian sun. It's one more reason I have to thank Random Recipes for getting me to delve into my cookbooks. This month's challenge had a bit of a twist. Dom, of Belleau Kitchen (who runs the challenge) created a Randometer thingummy-bob to test us. You had to enter how many cookbooks you owned, and then it would generate a random number. You counted along your shelf to that book, and then entered the number of pages, to generate another number and so find your Random Recipe. The gods must have been looking favourably on me this month, as I ended up with this gorgeous lemon cake, from Peggy Porschen's 'Boutique Baking...
29 comments
Read more

Classic Victoria Sponge with Rhubarb and Custard

I suppose that's a bit of a misnomer for a start. After all, a classic Victoria Sponge, as beloved by the Queen it's named after, is filled with raspberry jam and cream. But I had some rhubarb lurking in the fridge that I wanted to find a use for. I'd bought it at the weekend. An impulse buy. Partly initiated by the fact that I'd never actually prepared rhubarb myself before. I remember my mum cooking it when I was little. My granddad used to grow it on his allotment, and so at this time of year, some of the crop would find its way home on the back of his bike. Sometimes it would go into a crumble. More often than not, though, it would simply be stewed to an inch of its life alongside the Sunday roast. The rosiness of the rhubarb would glow against it's usual companion of pale golden custard.   As a child, I didn't really enjoy the taste. Now, though, I can appreciate its tartness, especially when tempered with a light sweetness of suga...
14 comments
Read more