Lemon Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
This post is also available in / Esta entrada también está disponible en ESPAÑOL (SPANISH)
These little gems are perfect for Easter. The cake is the perfect combination of Vanilla and tangy lemon. I was so excited to make these! Specially for Easter. The cupcake is spongy and moist. Perfect for kids too! To decorate the cupcakes for Easter I used: Wilton Tip No. 233 to make the grass, leaf green Gel from this Wilton 8 Color Icing set, Wilton Spring Confetti Sprinkles, Wilton Nest with Jelly Beans Royal Icing Decorations and Wilton Sweet Spring Combo Pack. You can safely say that I went a bit too Easter crazy at the supermarket! I even have some other non-Easter goodies saved for future posts!
One thing you will notice is that this recipe calls for Cake Flour and not All-purpose flour. The most significant difference between cake and all purpose flour is the amount of protein content in it. Typically, cake flour consists of 7-8% of protein content while general all purpose flour consists of 11-12% of protein content. I also tried out the silicone cupcake liners that I described how to use on my previous post here.
Kitty
Lemon Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Makes 24 cupcakes
From My Baking Addiction
Ingredients for the Cupcakes
2 ¼ cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups buttermilk
4 large egg whites
1 ½ cups sugar
Lemon zest from two lemons
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Juice of 2 lemons
Directions:
- Center a rack in the oven, and preheat it to 350°F. and line standard muffins tins with paper liners. Since I used silicone baking cupcake liners, I lined up on top of a cookie sheet and coat them with a thin layer of vegetable oil or non-stick spray.
- Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
- Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.
- Put the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant.
- Add the butter and, working with the paddle attachment, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light.
- Beat in the vanilla and lemon juice and mix well, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed.
- Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated.
- Add the rest of the milk and eggs, beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients.
- Fill the cupcake liners ⅔ of the way.
- Bake for 18-22 minutes, or until the cupcakes are well risen and springy to the touch – a tooth pick inserted into the centers should come out clean.
- Cool completely on wire rack before frosting.
Cream Cheese Frosting
Makes enough to heavily frost 24 medium-size cupcakes
Ingredients:
16-oz of cream cheese, softened
1 stick butter, softened
2 lbs. confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
juice of one lemon
green gel coloring
Directions:
- Sift the confectioner’s sugar.
- Using a mixer, blend the butter and cream cheese together until well combined.
- Gradually add in the confectioners’ sugar until fully incorporated.
- Finally mix in vanilla and lemon juice.
- Add a drop of the green gel coloring to dye the frosting.
I had to let set the frosting for a bit (after adding a bit of green gel to color it) since the grass was not holding. A quick tip is to put it in the fridge for about 5 minutes. Then, fill the pipping bag and start working! I found that some of the buttercream starts to harden inside the tip and may cause the holes to get blocked, so have a few toothpicks handy so you can release the hardened buttercream and re-open all the little holes. Also, I had about 1 cup of frosting left, so I froze it and used it a week later as cake filling. Worked perfectly!
To make the grass you can watch this video from Wilton:
Have you made this recipe?
Please let me know how it turned out for you! Leave a comment below and share a picture with the hashtag #thefoodieskitchen
Want more?
You can subscribe to our newsletter and we’ll send you the monthly recipes! You can also keep up to date on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest or Tumblr.
© 2011 – 2020, The Foodies’ Kitchen. All rights reserved | Todos los derechos reservados
This post is also available in / Esta entrada también está disponible en ESPAÑOL (SPANISH)