(virgin) Margarita cupcakes

To buck my trend of boozy cakes, I decided to make margarita cupcakes. Virgin style (there is an alcoholic option available, if you really can't help yourself.) This comes again from 'Eat Me!' by Cookie Girl: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eat-Me-Stupendous-Self-Raising-According/dp/0091925118/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1284395018&sr=8-1
As I mentioned earlier, my stupidly expensive icing kit has given up the ghost, so I'm on my own. Hence these rather messy looking cakes, which I've only allowed you a brief glimpse of at the end. Still, the taste made up for their hideousness. I loved them unconditionally, as I would my future hypothetical socially inept children. (I joke, I joke. It would be social services for them.)

Sponge ingredients
4oz unsalted butter, room temp
4oz sugar
2 large eggs
4oz self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp lemon juice
Makes 12
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Fill a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases.

2. You got this down now. Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl until fluffy. Add the eggs one by one, then sift in the flour and baking powder. Then add your lemon juice and mix until smooth.

3. Put a tablespoon of mixture into each cake case, and bake for 15-20 minutes until as springy as a spring lamb.

Filling ingredients
1oz butter
2 fl oz fresh lime juice
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
4oz caster sugar
grated zest of 2 limes
(1-2 tbsp tequila....optional. I don't judge. You total alcoholic)

1. Prepare the filling. Ok, so, you put the lime in the coconut and....not really. Sorry. But that's in your head now, isn't it? What you ACTUALLY do is heat the butter and lime juice in a pan over a medium heat until the butter melts.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, egg yolks and sugar together. Then add the hot butter mixture slowly to the egg mixture. Pour all of this back into the pan and continue cooking over a medium heat. Stir with a wooden spoon until it reaches boiling point and thickens

3. Take it off the heat and stir in the lime zest. If you were to opt for tequila, you could stir it in just about now, you old smoothie.

Icing ingredients
4oz unsalted butter, room temp

4oz cream cheese, room temp

1lb icing sugar, sifted (I just make up quantities, but this is your actual proper recipe measurement)

Juice and grated zest of 1 lime

1 tbsp triple sec

Green food colouring

Sea salt flakes, to decorate

Grated lime zest, to decorate

1. Ooh, you lucky thing. It's your favourite bit, isn't it! The bit where you get to keep 'tasting' it to make sure it's ok, and eating half the bowl in the process! Yes, everyone loves icing. Beat together the butter and cream cheese, beat it more than Alex Reid gets beaten in a fight. Yeah! I'm topical (ish). Add the icing sugar and mix well, then add the lime juice and zest, Triple sec and green food colouring.

2. I did something a bit cheaty and bad. Yes, dear reader, I will confess all to you. My hideous secret, you've dredged it out of me....the idea that sparked all this was a £3.99 bottle of margarita mix (sans tequila) in Waitrose. I KNOW! I hate ready mixed, ready made, pre-prepared rubbish. It makes me no better than Delia. I will NEVER do it again. But I used this mix in place of the triple sec and lime. (It's really hard not to type 'triple sex'. Try it)

3. When the cakes are cool, remove the inside with a spoon or a knife. Or a knifey spoony. Fill them with your sweet, sweet, limey filling. Then spread the icing on top, sprinkle with lime zest and add a bit of salt. (I used Jamie Oliver's pink himalayan sea salt. It rocked my world. Get it? Rocked? Salt? Oh, come on.)