Lemon cheesecake cupcakes with lemon curd - easy to make cupcakes that are sweet and tangy, perfect for fancy morning tea or a high tea party.
Do you ever hear someone say something that is just what you’ve been wanting to hear so you take it as fact without a moment’s thought and start telling everyone this fact?
It can be quite advantageous I find.
Apparently, the year I made these, wasn't a very good year for citrus.
As soon as someone told me this I took it as pure fact because it gave an excuse for the lack of lemons our tree produced that year.
An excuse that didn't include my lack of care for the poor tree.
We might have forgotten to give it a good prune and fertilise at the end of the season before.
Anyway, the few lemons that we did get, I treated well.
The first couple went into a batch of lemon curd made with backyard eggs.
I can’t tell you how satisfying it was making something almost entirely of home-grown produce (must get onto that sugar farm - hmm there’s a vacant lot behind us….).
Some went into my morning lemon tea but others were destined for greater things.
Greater things in the form of lemon cheesecake cupcakes with lemon curd.
You might also like our lemon meringue ice cream.
Now don’t be deceived, although these look complicated, they’re not actually that difficult.
There are just a lot of steps involved.
Mine took me most of the day between toddler feeding, entertaining and outings but they were so very worth it.
In fact they received the highest accolade that any cupcake can receive in the Claire K Creations household.
Will said ‘I think this is one of the best cupcakes you’ve ever made.’
Now my husband is always, ok usually very kind about my cooking but those sort of words are pretty unheard of.
They really are that good and my addition of lemon curd hidden under the icing took them to a whole new level of deliciousness.
I took a few to Mother’s Group this week and the girls all agreed too so really I have to insist that you try them.
Tips
- Don’t make the biscuit mixture and then leave it sitting in the food processor. It will set. Hard. And you’ll have to rescue it.
- Use your fingers to press/shape the biscuit mixture into the pan. It’s too tricky to try and be clean and use a spoon in my opinion.
- You might need a lot more icing sugar than the recipe states. My icing was a bit runny so I added more to thicken it.
- Leftover icing is delicious spread on biscuits (just saying).
- They’re best kept in the fridge but I think best eaten after being unchilled for at least 15 minutes.
- You can use store-bought lemon curd or make your own. One of my favourite recipes is this microwave lemon curd.
See I’ve done all the hard work for you and made all the mistakes.
Now all that’s left for you to do is make them and enjoy!
So what about you?
Do you love lemons?
What’s your favourite lemon recipe?
Any ideas for what I should do with the next little harvest?
p.s. If you’re looking for more lemon recipes I have 10 luscious lemon recipes for you.
Recipe
Lemon cheesecake cupcakes with lemon curd
Ingredients
Cakes
- 250 g 8.8ozcream cheese
- 2 teaspoon finely grated lemon rind
- 2 tablespoon raw sugar
- 250 g 8.8oz packet of ginger thin biscuits
- ⅓ cup desiccated coconut
- 80 g 3oz butter, melted and cooled
- ¾ cup self-raising flour I used wholemeal
- Extra ¼ cup raw sugar
- ¼ cup milk
- 1 egg lightly beaten
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Extra 50g 1.7oz butter, melted and cooled
Icing
- 60 g 2oz butter, softened
- 1 ½ cups icing sugar mixture I used 2 cups
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- ½ cup lemon curd
Instructions
- Grease 10 holes of a 12-hole silicone muffin tin. If you don’t have silicone then you will need to line the base and sides of each hole with two 1cmx15cm strips of baking paper crossed over on the base of each hole.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese, lemon rind and sugar until light and fluffy. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or until firm.
- In the bowl of a food processor or Thermomix, process the biscuits, coconut and melted butter into a fine crumb.
- Divide the mixture between the holes of the muffin tin and gently press around the outside of the cases to form a little cup. Refrigerate for 10 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 160C fan-forced.
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour and extra sugar then make a well in the middle and add the milk, egg, vanilla and extra melted butter and stir to combine.
- Spoon about 1 tablespoon of batter into each cookie case and then top with a teaspoon of the cream cheese mixture and cover with another spoonful of the batter.
- Bake the cupcakes for 18 minutes or until golden.
- Leave to cool completely in the tin then transfer to a wire rack.
- To make the icing, beat the rest of the cream cheese mixture with the extra butter in the bowl of an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Slowly add the icing sugar and lemon juice and beat until the icing is light and smooth. If it’s a bit too runny, add extra icing sugar mixture.
- Spoon the icing into a piping bag fitted with a star tip.
- Spoon a teaspoon blob of lemon curd on top of each cake and then pipe the icing on top.
- Serve.
- Refrigerate if not serving straight away.
Kaylene @ The Links Site says
These look delicious, I can't resist anything sweet with lemon in it! My all time favourite would have to be a classic lemon slice but lemon cheesecake cupcakes will definitely do me! I've still got a couple of lemons left on the tree so I will have to whip up a batch of these!
Claire says
Oh yes Kaylene if you like lemon slice then I think this will be a winner with you!
Hotly Spiced says
These cupcakes are so beautifully presented, Claire. I do love the cut-through image showing all the goodies and layers. I think that's excellent praise from Will. The icing is so pretty too. What a shame about the lemon season but it does sound like you made the most of the little harvest you had - there's always next year! xx
Claire says
There are still a couple yet to fall but nowhere near as many as previous years!