Ingredients
225g self-raising flour
175g golden caster sugar
zest 2 lemons
1 tbsp poppy seeds, toasted
3 eggs
100g natural yogurt
175g butter, melted and cooled a little
For the icing
225g butter, softened
400g icing sugar, sifted
juice 1 lemon
few drops yellow food colouring
icing flowers or yellow sprinkles, to decorate
Method
- Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with cupcake or muffin cases
- Mix the flour, sugar, lemon zest and poppy seeds together in a large mixing bowl
- Beat the eggs into the yogurt, then tip this into the dry ingredients with the melted butter
- Mix together with a wooden spoon or whisk until lump-free, then divide between the cases
- Bake for 20-22 mins until a skewer poked in comes out clean – the cakes will be quite pale on top still
- Cool for 5 mins in the tin, then carefully lift onto a wire rack to finish cooling
- To ice, beat the softened butter until really soft in a large bowl, then gradually beat in the icing sugar and lemon juice
- Stir in enough food colouring for a pale lemon colour, then spoon the icing into a piping bag with a large star nozzle
- Ice one cake at a time, holding the piping bag almost upright with the nozzle about 1cm from the surface of the cake
- Pipe one spiral of icing around the edge, then pause to break the flow before moving the nozzle towards the centre slightly and piping a second, smaller spiral that continues until there are no gaps in the centre
- Slightly ‘dot’ the nozzle into the icing as you stop squeezing to finish neatly
- Repeat to cover all the cakes, then top with sugar decorations or scatter with sprinkles.
