Lemon and Passion Fruit Curd Meringue Cupcakes

For these cakes, I used a lemony almond base, filled them with homemade lemon and passionfruit curd and then topped them with meringue which I toasted using my blowtorch. You can vary the flavors of the curd and use limes instead of lemons or you could even use half orange and half lemon but the curd would not be as tart. 

Lemony almond cakes

recipe from the caker 

225g butter

225g castor sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

50g plain flour

225g ground almonds

zest and juice of one large lemon

Lemon and Passionfruit curd

Zest and juice of 4 large lemons

pulp from 2 passion fruits

225g castor sugar

125 g butter

4 eggs, lightly beaten

Meringue icing

Preheat the oven to 180c. Line a muffin tin with 12 cupcake cases. 

In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar untill pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla. Fold in the flour and ground almonds and then fold in the lemon juice and zest. divide between the tins and bake for around 20 minutes or untill a skewer inserted comes out clean and the tops are golden. set aside to cool on a wire rack. 

For the curd, place the juice and zest, passion fruit pulp, sugar and butter in a medium saucepan and place over a medium heat until the butter has melted. Whisk in the eggs and stir constantly over a medium-low heat for about 10 minutes or until it has thickened  Make sure you stir it at all times else the eggs will cook and it will curdle. Pour into sterilized jars and set aside. 

Prepare the meringue icing. 

Core the middle of the cupcakes using an apple corer. Fill with the curd (you will have a fair amount left over) and pipe on the meringue icing using a 1cm circle nozzle. Toast lightly using a blow torch.