My sister was visiting me last week and I ended up doing a lot of baking while she was around. One of the things we made together were these great cupcakes with a royal icing. It was good fun! My sister, my helper and I spent two fun filled hours in decorating these on the evening of the night she had to fly. That evening made me realize how much I miss her in doing all the cooking, baking etc I do all the time. This one is for you sis! We had a great evening ... lets do this more often :)

I am a big fan of Pam Anderson (the cookbook author .... not the supermodel ;-) ). Her cookbooks are a delight to read, loaded with great recipes and interesting explanations of how her "Perfect" recipes came about to be. The cupcakes were made with her recipe for Basic Muffins. For the Royal Icing, I used a recipe from Nigella Lawson's Nigella Feasts. .

Muffins

Ingredients

Vegetable cooking spray/oil for brushing muffin tins

3 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

10 tablespoons butter (at room temperature)

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups plain yogurt

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

Adjust oven rack to lower middle position and preheat oven to 175 C. Coat a 12 cup muffin tin with vegetable oil/cooking spray.

Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.

Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in half of the dry ingredients. Beat in one third of yogurt. Beat in half of remaining dry ingredients, alternating with one third of remaining yogurt, and repeat until fully incorporated.

Use a large ice cream scoop to divide the batter evenly among muffin cups. Bake until muffins are golden brown, 20 - 25 minutes. Set on a wire rack to cool slightly, about 5 minutes. Remove from the tin and allow to cool before frosting.

Royal Icing:

I have modified the original recipe by Nigella Lawson to include 2 tsp of lemon juice.

Ingredients:

2 large egg whites

3 cups confectioners' sugar

2 tsp lemon juice

Method

Combine the egg whites and confectioners' sugar in a medium-size mixing bowl and whip with an electric mixer on medium speed until opaque and shiny, about 5 minutes. Whisk in the lemon juice, this will thin out the icing. Beat for another couple of minutes until you reach the right spreading consistency for the cupcakes.