Lemon cupcakes with vanilla and matcha tea frosting

I’ve made and blogged about lemon cupcakes a few times, like here and here, but I only now realized that I’ve never shared the recipe. I apologize, because I think this recipe is definitely a keeper. The cupcakes are easy to make, moist, and work well with several types of frosting.

Here’s what you’ll need and how to put it all together:

Lemon cupcakes:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup cream
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
3 oz butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2+ tbs lemon zest

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Combine and whisk together cream, eggs, yolk, vanilla, and lemon.
Cream together the butter and sugar in a mixer. Beat until well blended.
Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the wet in two parts.
Scoop batter into a muffin tin and bake at 350F for ~15-20 minutes.
The top will start to crackle when it’s done baking. 

For vanilla frosting, you can check out my previous post on chocolate cupcakes here. For matcha tea frosting, check out my post on grapefruit cupcakes here.

Order for pie and cupcakes!

Yesterday, after a lovely day of work à la bibliothèque, I spent a few hours on an order for an apple pie and chocolate cupcakes. Obviously, I was thrilled about this. I love baking so much, but if I were to bake as much as I’d like to… well, you know what would happen. Getting baking orders gives me the chance to bake without having to eat everything. Score!

So, here’s what I had the pleasure of putting together yesterday:

Apple pie with weaved crust

Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla icing

The recipes for both of these items can be found by clicking on the photo titles, which will link you to former blog posts.

Looking for some snazzy baking tips?

• Weaving your pie crust (yes, making your own pie crust is actually super easy) takes some patience, but is definitely worth the effort. Simply roll out the second half of your dough as normal, cut it into 1/2 inch strips, then begin weaving them on top of the pie. Start with one horizontal, then vertical, and so on, lifting alternating strips for each additional one you lay across. You can decide how tight you’d like the weave to be.
• Extra snack: if you have pie pastry and a few bits of apple filling left over, roll out the pastry, cut it into strips, place an apple chunk on each 1/2 strip, roll it up, bake for 15-20 minutes. Mmmmmm. Mini apple pie bite.
• Before baking, lightly brush the crust of your pie with cream or egg white, then sprinkle some of the cinnamon-sugar mixture used for the filling on top. This will make the crust golden brown and have a nice visual texture.
  
• I would highly recommend making the slight extra investment in vanilla bean paste for icing. The flavour is much more natural and rich. I purchase mine online for about $12/4oz bottle.
• Try to get your hands on at a few key piping tips. Having just a few tips will give you a huge variety of decorating options.
• Do not refrigerate your cupcakes. Refrigerating will dry them out really quickly. Instead, consider placing them in a lidded tin or in a dish with plastic wrap on top.

** Also! I’ve added a page called “Custom” to my blog. The purpose of this is pretty self-evident. If you live in the Halifax area and would like to discuss a custom baking order, give me a ring or send me an email!

Pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese and ginger icing

While I was a bit rushed, I have to say I’m really happy with how these cupcakes turned out. I thought this would be a perfect recipe to test out for the potluck – it’s fall, it’s cooling down outside, and the leaves are slowly changing colour.

The base recipe I used for these cupcakes can be found here, but I adapted it as seen below:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup cooked pumpkin (pure can pumpkin could be used instead)
3/4 cup milk

Sift together all the dry ingredients.
Cream butter and sugar. Add egg, mix. Add pumpkin, mix.
Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture in three stages, alternating with the milk.
Bake at 350F for ~20-25 minutes.

The cupcakes turned out to be really moist and flavourful.

I decided on cream cheese and ginger icing for the cupcakes. Here’s how it’s done:

5 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
2 teaspoons finely grated peeled fresh ginger

Cream together the cream cheese and butter. Mix in the ginger. Add the icing sugar 1/2 cup at a time. Tweak to perfection.

Remember that you can experiment with your icing. If the above doesn’t seem suited to your tastes or desired consistency, add more of the appropriate ingredient. Because this is a relatively soft icing, it’s hard to pipe. I would recommend spreading it onto the cupcake with a spatula. Remember to store these in the fridge!

I hope you try out this great autumn treat!  

Coming up: pumpkin cupcakes

I started a new job just two weeks ago and what have I learned? I learned how much I love workplaces/employers that value getting together to share a few delicious treats and snacks. Next Sunday there will be a potluck at work and there’s really no better an opportunity to try something new. I’ve decided to make pumpkin cupcakes – perfect to go with the chilly autumn weather that’s becoming more frequent here in Halifax (though it’s sunny today, YES!). The one thing I can’t decide on is the type of icing. I could go the traditional route and use cream cheese icing, but I’d like to try something a little different. Cream cheese and ginger perhaps? Just ginger? Some cinnamon? I have no idea where to go with this…

All that to say… it’s autumn now – happy autumn – and stay tuned!