Well Autumn is officially upon us, and so thoughts start turning to Christmas and all the delicious treats we indulge in over the festive period!

We are busy at Bakes HQ planning our Christmas products – watch out for our new confectionary range and a few tasty collabs in the next few months – they are just the perfect stocking filler, so start dropping hints now 😉

We were recently sent some delicious nut pastes to try out from The Nut Kitchen, having just won a load of Great Taste stars (there is a reason the are stocked in Harrods!), we couldn’t wait to get in the kitchen and whip something up with them. We are testing a few styles for our Christmas photography too, so thought we’d kill two birds with one stone and use this grey Wednesday for some recipe and photography testing!

Inspired by the latest series of  The Great British Bake off  (of course) we wanted to get out our sugar thermometer, and so decided to make some individual Lemon Meringue Cakes – with an almond twist by adding Almond Paste to the sponge.

Get 15% off everything on The Nut Kitchen’s shop until 8th October using code BAKESBOX15

Lemon & Almond Meringue Mini Cakes

Ingredients:

For the sponge:

50g Homepride Self Raising Flour

50g Caster Sugar

50g Softened Butter

1 large tspn Nut Kitchen Almond Paste 

1 Egg

For the Lemon Filling:

1tbspn Cornflour

100g Caster Sugar

The zest and juice of 2 large unwaxed lemons

40g Butter

2 Egg Yolks

1 Whole Egg

For the Meringue:

200g Caster Sugar

100ml Water

4 Egg Whites

Method.

1. Mix the butter, sugar, flour and egg in a bowl until its fully combined, stir in the almond paste – making sure it is well mixed in.
2. Grease a 12 hole muffin tin and divide the mixture between the holes, making sure you have at least 1 tablespoon in each.
3. Bake in the oven on 180 degrees for 10 – 15 minutes or until golden and springy to touch. Leave to cool completely.
4. Meanwhile, make the lemon filling by placing the cornflour, sugar and lemon juice & zest in a pan over a medium heat. Stir continuously until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture begins to thicken. Take off the heat and stir in the butter until completely melted, then add the beaten egg mix.
5. Stir in the eggs and return to a medium heat, stirring vigorously until really thick and glossy.(Don’t stop stirring or your will have lemony scrambled egg!) Take off the heat and leave to cool.
6. To make the meringue, place the egg whites in a stand mixture (we always wipe the bowl with half a cut lemon to make sure there is no grease in the bowl) whisk the eggs on high speed until you get soft peaks (when you pull the whisk out, it leaves peaks but they flatten again)
7. Place the water and the sugar in a pan over a high heat and boil until it reaches 240 degrees (be very careful not to splash any on you!) then start the mixer again on a medium speed and pour the syrup in as it mixes (again, be careful not to hit the whisk or it may splash on you). Once the syrup has been poured in, turn the mixer up high and leave to whisk until thick and glossy.
8. To assemble the cakes, put a teaspoon of the lemon filling on top of each sponge base (we added a fresh raspberry at this stage too which added a lovely flavour) then pipe the meringue around the edge and into the middle, as you would ice a cupcake.
9. Finish with a small pallet knife to cover the edges and add texture, and scorch the top with a blowtorch.
10. Take a picture, share with us on Instagram @bakesbox and then enjoy!

Let us know if you made it in the comments below!

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Get 15% off everything on The Nut Kitchen’s shop until 8th October using code BAKESBOX15