Cup Cakes with Royal Icing

Wanted to make these babies for a long time now!

And let me tell you these taste every bit as good as they look.

My only regret was that the royal icing turned a little bit more runny than I would have liked, but  for the first timer like me I think it was ok.

Royal icing is a hard white icing, usually made from softly beaten eggwhites, powdered sugar and  lemon or lime juice.

The recipe for the royal icing I have tried here is something I saw on TLC. I have used sugar syrup instead of powdered sugar.

Ingredients:

For the Cup Cakes (sponge cake):

1 cup               Maida

1 cup               Oil

3                      Eggs

1/2 tsp             Baking Powder

1 cup               Powdered Sugar

a few drops    Vanilla Essence

For the Royal Icing:

1 1/2 cups        Sugar

1/2 cup              Water

2                        Egg whites

1 tsp                  Lemon Juice

Method:

For the cake batter. Beat the oil and sugar. Beat the eggs separately and add to the oil and sugar mixture and beat again. Sieve the maida and baking powder atleast twice. Now gently fold the maida gradually in the liquid mixture. Add the vanilla essence and mix.

Pour the batter in small cupcakes mold and bake at 180 degrees for 25 mins. or till done.

Remove when baked and cool.

For the icing. Beat the egg whites till soft peak form.  Make sugar syrup using 1 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup water. Remove from heat before it reaches one string consistency. Pour in the lemon juice. Stir and keep aside. Gradually add the sugar syrup to the egg whites all the while beating. This is a little tricky. The sugar syrup should be hot but not boiling and you need to keep the beater on while adding the syrup to the egg whites. Keep beating till stiff peak forms. This will take about 10 mins. The icing will turn dazzling white and beautiful. 

Cool the icing a little and then frost the cupcakes. You can also add different colors to the icing.

Decorate the cup cakes with colorful vermicelli or any other colorful toppings.

  

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