Lemon Thyme, yoghurt semolina mini cakes gorgeously herb scented tea cake with a fresh and lively colour magnificently embodying the essence of summer.  This perfectly moist and delicately textured cakes tick all the boxes bursting with life and zest.

The kugelhopf mini cakes are an elegant addition to your tea time table.

I usually make these on an autumn winters day, when my lemon production from the two humble little lemon trees are in full swing.  The Lemon Thyme is aromatic, and growing in abundance from the rain and intermittent sunshine. I do hope you enjoy these vibrant, flavourful little cakes.  They certainly brighten up my autumn day.

Although, this is essentially a syrup cake the amount of  sugar used within the cake and for the syrup and icing is balanced so that it is not overtly sweet as you would expect.

Makes 8-10 mini cakes

30 min cooking time

Ingredients

Rind of 1/2 lemon

125g butter ( softened & almost liquid )

3 medium eggs or 2 jumbo ( my eggs weighed 135g )

3 generous sprigs of thyme extra for syrup essence

100g ( 6 level tbspns ) sugar

1 cup ( 75g ) plain flour

1/2 tspn baking powder

1/4 cup (45g ) fine semolina

1/4 cup strained Greek yogurt ( not funny but thick)

Icing glaze

60g icing sugar

juice of 1/2 lemon

Light lemon thyme syrup

1/4 cup water

60g icing sugar

2 Sprigs thyme

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Bruise the lemon thyme leaves, 1 tablespoon of sugar and lemon zest with a mortar and pestle.

Sift the plain flour and baking powder together.

Using the paddle of a food processor mix the very soft  butter, sugar and pestle ingredients together.

Add the eggs one at a time.

Note: The eggs used are jumbo-sized.  I have included the weight of the two. You may need to use one extra egg if your eggs are smaller.

Mix in the plain flour and baking powder last leaf falls through the semolina.

Fold through the yoghurt.

Butter and coat with flour your kugelhopf tins very well. Dust off eccess flour. If your tins are not buttered well you will struggle to remove them as with any mini cake tin.

Place your cakes in the preheated oven and reduce the temperature by about 5 degrees Celsius. Each oven Carrie’s the heat inside differently so you will need to keep an eye on these cakes.

Bake in the fan forced oven for 30 minutes.

While the cakes are baking gently simmer your syrup ingredients for 15 minutes. Simmer on very low heat otherwise  the liquid will all evaporate and burn.

Simmer very gently for as long as it takes to reduce by half the amount of liquid you started with.

Remove the cupcakes from the oven after the allocated time, allow to cool then remove from their moulds.

Place on a dish with sides so as to catch excess liquid. Poor the syrup there won’t be much. A little bit of liquid by the long way and we don’t want them sickly sweet anyway.

Mix icing and juice well till smooth.

Allow to cool well and drizzle with your icing.

Serve.