Lemon syrup cupcakes, Michelangelo’s style

These are my father’s favorite ones, along with granola bars and a kind of muffins I made at the very beginning of my blogging activity, made with orange and chocolate. Why these? Because, in his own words, they are good, sweet, fragrant with lemon and are exceptionally soft and smooth. Besides that, candied lemon zest is the perfect complement, along with a golden and citrus syrup (ok, I added a few notes of color!). I love them a lot as well, but for a matter of color matching.

Let’s have a few steps back to high school time for a moment… ok, maybe more than a few steps. I have never studied History of Arts  in a proper way, but it was one of my favorite subjects. I have mixed memories, but some of them remained vivid, especially those related to one of my favorite artists, Michelangelo. I like the way he paints bodies with a plastic style, as if sculpted. I love especially his use of colors, resolute, brilliant and vivid, based on the principle of complementary contrast.

Red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple. The colors do not melt or fade into one another, but they are intertwined, creating a shimmering effect of bright colors, full of energy, an explosion! I remember the dress of a female figure in the Sistine Chapel, yellow and purple: it was really beautiful. Since then I love the juxtaposition of these two colors and when I found these cutie purple paper cups I couldn’t help but look for a yellow recipe, the most yellow I could find, to recreate once again this wonderful contrast of complementary colors. That is how the presentation of these cupcakes with lemon syrup was born, recipe taken with some changes (mainly the removal of orange) from the cookbook Cupcakes – small luxuries for the palate.

Ingredients for 36 tiny cupcakes:

• cold butter, 125 gr diced
• granulated sugar, 230 gr
• grated lemon rind, 4 tablespoons
• eggs, 3
• milk, 125 ml
• self rising flour, 185 gr

Lemon syrup:

• sugar, 230 gr
• lemon rind thinly sliced
  

Preheat oven to 180°C. Add diced cold butter, sugar and grated lemon rind in a saucepan and stir over low heat until the sugar melts, then transfer everything into a large bowl. Fold in eggs, milk and flour and whisk just to mix with electric whips.
Spoon the mixture into muffin molds lined with paper cups and bake for 15 minutes until a toothpick stuck in center comes out clean, then let them cool on a rack.

To make lemon syrup, combine 200ml of water and sugar in a saucepan and warm over low heat, stirring, until the sugar melts. Add the lemon zest and let simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally until the liquid becomes syrupy and golden.

Decorate each tiny cake with zest and a few spoonfuls of syrup.

P.S. ready for a surprise? Saturday there will be a Mad Hatter Tea Party at me with many friends and sweet treats .. Sunday I’ll publish the photos! 😉

Related posts:

A cake for dummies Corn cake with limoncello: yellow raised to the second power Galaktoboureko – a Greek phyllo custard pie and my love for Greece! Bomboloni, the Italian doughnuts. Memories of carefree days