I was walking on the treadmill at the gym recently flipping through the latest issue of Everyday with Rachel Ray when I came upon this recipe. It’s not the sort of recipe that would typically catch my eye. I’m not a huge ginger fan nor have I ever been drawn to the lemon/ginger combination. However, I had been given a can of crystallized ginger recently and since I’ve never baked with crystallized ginger before, I wasn’t quite sure how or where I wanted to use it. This recipe solved that problem, plus these are adorable mini cupcakes and those are always fun to bake!
I find that the yield listed in most cupcake recipes never matches up with how many cupcakes I get from the batter, but this recipe baked up 24 beautiful mini cupcakes as it claimed it would. The glaze proved a bit tricky to apply. I didn’t listen to the instructions to dip the top of the cupcakes in at first, instead trying to use the back of a spoon to spread just a tad bit of glaze on each one. Without fail I applied too much every time and the glaze poured over the edges of the cupcakes. Dipping worked much better, though it required patience to let all the excess drip off before flipping the cupcakes right side up and sprinkling them with the ginger. I wound up with a lot of extra glaze so you could probably cut the recipe below in half or by 2/3 and still have enough for all 24 minis.
I still haven’t figured out how to photograph yellow and white foods well so I couldn’t get any shots I was excited about but I guess that’s just how it goes sometimes. I sent these off to work with Shane today and haven’t received any feedback yet. I’m not sure how they’ll go over at his office since I typically send mainly chocolate treats. I really liked them though. The cupcakes were light and fluffy and I found that I enjoyed the ginger and lemon combination more than I expected. In fact, it made me want to search out more recipes utilizing the combination to try!
By Tracey
Ginger Tea Cakes with Lemon Glaze
from Everyday with Rachel Ray
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- pinch salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
- 7 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk
- 3 tablespoons buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 3 tablespoons finely chopped candied ginger
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a 24-cup mini muffin pan with paper liners.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and ginger. Using a hand mixer, beat the sugar and butter at medium speed for about 1 minute. Beat in the whole eggs and the egg yolk at medium speed until well combined. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture, beating until just combined. With the mixer still on low, add the buttermilk and vanilla. Use a rubber spatula to give the batter one final mix, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl.
Add 1 tablespoon of batter to each cup of the mini muffin pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean, about 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer the muffin tin to a cooling rack and cool cupcakes for 10 minutes before removing them from the tin to cool completely on the rack.
To Make the Glaze: In a small bowl, whisk together the confectioners’ sugar, lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of water. Dip the tops of the cupcakes in the glaze and top them with the candied ginger.
Makes 24 mini cupcakes.
