National Pie Week- Lemon Meringue Pie Cupcakes and Banoffee Pie Cupcakes!

As one of my lovely cake appreciators pointed out, its national pie week! Much as I love a nice pie I am also a huge fan of the pie-turned-cake! Now, don't worry, I'm not suggesting a pork pie cupcake or Meat and Potato layer cake.

I wanted to share two of these pie-turned-cakes I made recently. The first is the Lemon Meringue cupcake. I made these because a good friend of mine was coming to stay and we were having a party. Exciting events in themselves but this meant I had a new array of willing cake testers!! (they just didn't know it yet) I must say, I was a tad disappointed when my friend told me his favourite type of cake was lemon with lemon icing. I'm the kind of girl who wants a big chocolate fudge brownie with a flake slammed on top rammed inside a mars bar cake topped with fudge and toffee sauce with chocolate ice cream (sort of thing- you get the idea, I'm greedy and I like chocolate cake). The idea of lemon cakes with lemon icing sounded so dull and unexciting I thought that if I attempted it I might fall asleep head first in the mixing bowl with boredom mid cake mix. So I began looking out for something a bit more exciting that had lemon in it.

I struggled.

Lemon was just so, well... lemony and it wasn't chocolate.

Then I happened upon a recipe for lemon meringue pie cakes, it was more complicated than anything I'd tried before, I'd never made meringue, or lemon curd or the both of these in cupcake form. Nevertheless I gave it a go (and made a back up chocolate cake for emergencies lest the worst should occur). The lemony sponge was dolloped into cases and baked.

This bit was dull.

Sponge, in a paper cake case, baked (yawn) done.

THEN came the home-made lemon curd bit. I was so excited I had managed to do this without making lemony scrambled eggs that I wanted to ring people I hadn't spoken to in ages and didn't even like just to let them know what I had achieved!! I had made home made lemon curd and it had worked and did not taste or look like sick!!! Yes!!! Sad, I know. I did a little dance around the kitchen, long enough for the lemon curd to cool, calmed down a bit and then tackled the next step... The Meringue. Lord knows how but I managed to pipe this onto the cakes that now had little holes cut in and were filled with lemon curd and pop them in the oven long enough not to burn them. Hoorah!! Lemon curd cupcakes!! not one was left!..

The Banoffee Pie cupcakes were inspired by the fact that I was having two very good friends to visit who both go by the name of Betty. I don't know many people who like banoffee pie but Betty and Betty love it so this was the perfect chance to try another experiment.

I boiled a can of unopened condensed milk for 3 hours to make the toffee sauce and felt very smug indeed (then I felt a bit stupid when I realised you could buy this ready made in a tin- oh well). WARNING this stuff is seriously addictive, I had to make myself throw it in the bin once I'd used it for the recipe. The toffee and banana cupcakes were baked, cooled and a little hole was made in the middle of each one to put the caramel/toffee sauce in. Now, whenever I buy the stuff, I always ensure I am supervised once the tin is opened to make sure I don't shove my face in the tin and eat the lot without even the aid of a spoon. Once that was done I topped with freshly whipped whipping cream and little fudge pieces. The Bettys loved them, my nephew however did not. He took one bite and looked like he might cry. Every time he visits his auntie he gets chocolate cake, he just didn't understand. Where was the chocolate?! Luckily I had some chocolate biscuits to hand to resolve the situation. 'The thing is' he said in between a mouthful of chocolate biscuit, 'I just like chocolate' then he gave a casual little shrug with all the charm of a five year old telling you something in the same manner you might expect of an old man. 'I know Harry, I know'. I reassured him, and I can honestly say that I do!