Last post I mentioned re-discovering a fabulous carrot and poppyseed cake. I realised that I don’t proclaim my discovery of things often enough. It would be remiss of me to write any further this week without mentioning my two new loves – lemon thyme and cake stands.
Of course, I’ve always known that both existed, but this week I have seen them in a new light. So I guess you could call these sort-of-discoveries It was an abundance of lemon thyme in the garden that drew me to seek out new recipes to harness it. The smell of lemon thyme is absolutely enchanting. It’s like lemon’s cooler older brother – lemon thyme is a little more mature and mellowed out where lemon is really loud and abrasive, too busy trying to prove himself.
My second discovery was Three Birds Vintage Cake Stands. I stumbled across the shop on ebay and I have no idea how my blog functioned without these glorious creations in them. Owner Casey up-cycles beautiful old plates and turns them into gorgeous cake stands. And they’re dead cheap too! Casey’s cake stands have character, which is what I really like about them.
The three tiered cake stand that I bought complemented my lemon thyme beauties perfectly!
Mini lemon thyme cakes:
- 180g butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 tbsp lemon zest
- 4 eggs
- 3 tbsp lemon thyme
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 ½ cups plain flour
Lemon thyme syrup
- Juice of half a lemon
- 4 tbsp sugar
- 4-5 sprigs of lemon thyme
- 1/3 cup water
Preheat the oven to 180C. Prepare a 12 capacity cupcake tin by lining with patty pans.
Pull the small top leaves off your lemon thyme and spread them across the bottom of your patty pans. Don’t overdo it, most people will be hesitant about eating lemon thyme cupcakes, so they won’t want to find whole sprigs at the bottom of their cupcake!
Cream together the butter, sugar and lemon zest until pale and fluffy. Add in the sugar, followed by each of the eggs, mixing after each addition. While this is mixing, finely chop 3 tablespoonfuls of lemon thyme. Add in your vanilla and then the flour.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the top of the cake rises and firms. They’re dense little cakes, so they won’t spring back under your touch. When they’re done, remove them from the oven and allow them to cool.
As they’re cooling, throw your lemon juice, sugar, lemon thyme sprigs and water in a small pan over medium heat. Dissolve the sugar, stirring regularly and then turn the heat up. Allow the mixture to boil rapidly (keep stirring, don’t let it burn!) and keep boiling for 1-2 minutes, until it thickens slightly.
Remove the mixture from the heat and set it to one side. Grab a bamboo skewer and poke several holes in each of the cakes. Remove the lemon thyme from the mixture and spoon the syrup over each of the cakes. You should have enough for about a tablespoon of syrup for each.
The syrup gives the cakes an hit of mature lemon thyme and makes them nice and moist. It is also drinkable. Seriously, I want to bottle this syrup and hand it out on street corners, it is that delicious. I think I may attempt to make some lemon thyme toffee in the coming weeks. I’m in love!
Makes about 12 dense little cakelets.
How lovely, the cupcakes are just beautiful and I have to make that syrup. Have a lemon thyme plant in the backyard.
I never know what to do with lemon thyme, I feel that it has fewer uses than regular thyme! I’ll be making this recipe more often though! Do let me know if you make the syrup, I want someone else’s opinion on it – maybe I’m just lemon thyme crazy? Haha
Possibly (as in thyme crazy above), if you’re handing that out on street corners. Grab a stall and sell it (as in syrup)!
– I used to grow lemon thyme, and love the smell. I wouldn’t use most of the smaller herbs from that garden as there were too many unwanted cats – shan’t go into details.
– I’ve seen those cake stands before now and just love ’em.