Luscious Lemon Cupcake Love

I’m not, nor ever have been a “trendy” person. In fact when there is a trend I usually steer clear until the trend is all over, and if I’m still interested I might stick my toe in to see if it was really worth the hype. I’ve been interested in taking pictures of food lately, food styling, etc. It’s a world that fascinates me - I know I am not the greatest right now but I would like to learn about it, and maybe start doing it more often. So I decided that I could make cupcakes/cookies/brownies to learn new recipes, utilize my kitchen more (which has been very neglected lately), and it’s something that I can easily bundle up and give away since I’m not eating it. Out of the whole batch of peach cupcakes I had 1 regular sized one, and out of this new batch of lemon ones I made myself a half sized cupcake. It’s great service, and it gets me to do something that I enjoy - so I have apparently jumped on the cupcake bandwagon, and I’m enjoying it completely. So here is another cupcake recipe to enjoy!

Cupcake

2 1/4 cups flour
1 TBL baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
4 large egg whites
1 1/2 cups sugar
lemon zest from two lemons
8 TBLS unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
3/4 tsp pure lemon extract

Center a rack in the over and pre-heat to 350.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl
Whisk together buttermilk and egg whites in a medium bowl
Put sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl and rub together with fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant
Add the butter and beat on medium speed for 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light
Beat in all the extracts
Alternate between 1/3 of the flour and 1/2 of the milk until all is incorporated
Beat for 1 minute to ensure it is completely mixed
DON’T OVER BEAT -  this recipe will get dense quickly
Bake for 20 min or until cupcakes are well risen, springy to the touch, or a thin knife inserted in center comes out clean

Icing

1 cup softened butter
8oz softened cream cheese
3-5 cups of confectioners sugar
1 1/4 vanilla extract
juice of one lemon

In mixer mix butter until it is softened and uniform
Add cream cheese and beat together until it is well blended
Add vanilla and mix
Add lemon juice and mix
Add 3c of sugar to the mixture and mix
Continue mixing until mixture is the consistency you need it
Add more sugar if needed according to taste

And now I leave you with some cupcake eye candy!