Lemon Cupcakes

By Addie

Now…I have a little confession to make. I’m not super crazy about cake. I like it okay, and if I’m at a party, I’m not going to say no. But if it’s nothing special, then I’d just rather have a piece of pie or a tart or a pastry or something like that.

Well, I stumbled across this recipe in a dark, dusty corner of Martha Stewart’s website last year when I was getting ready for my daughter’s first birthday. I wasn’t looking for a lemon cake, and I wasn’t looking for a recipe that was so incredibly poorly constructed and hard-to-follow (seriously, whoever edited that recipe should be fired, or at least flogged aa little), but it sounded delish and I was after the flower cake tutorial.

Well…once I figured out what in the WORLD was going on (the baking time for a 9×13 cake is incredibly off, for starters), it ended up being quite possibly the most delicious cake I’d ever eaten in my entire life. Somehow, it’s a little dense (kind of like pound cake) and yet incredibly light and airy at the same time. I used the lemon buttercream recipe from my Southern Living cookbook and seriously…there are no words.

Since it calls for 3 sticks of butter and 5 eggs in the cake alone, I don’t make it too much, but I figured this time around, I’d give cupcakes a whirl. I think they were even better–the cake can almost be too much, but the cupcakes are perfectly portioned snippets of lemony goodness. And they’re so rich that I only need too eat one and then I’m done, which, when I have a million of these suckers lying around, is definitely a good thing.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) of REAL butter
• 3 cups cake flour (no substitutions here–you really need the lightness of cake flour)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 ups sugar
• 5 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• Zest of 2 lemons (just zest the other lemons before you squeeze them)
• 1 cup buttermilk

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat oven to 325. Line 2 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake liners (I used yellow, although white would also be cute).

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, 4-5 minutes. Don’t go skimping here–you want the mixture to be almost white and super fluffy. This is absolutely essential to the outcome of the cake.

While butter and sugar are mixing, sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl. Set aside. After butter and sugar have mixed sufficiently, With the mixer running, add eggs, one at a time, beating to incorporate after each addition. Beat in vanilla, lemon juice, and lemon zest.

With mixer on low speed, alternate adding flour mixture and buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture and beating until fully incorporated.

Using a standard cookie scoop, place about 2 scoops of batter into each muffin cup. Fill these almost to the top–due to the final texture (again, think super-moist and light pound cake), these cupcakes won’t have a nice, curvy crown, but that’s okay–no one will ever know or care.

Bake about 20-25 minutes or just until a toothpick inserted into the center of one of the cupcakes comes out clean. You don’t want to overbake these even a bit, or they’ll start to lose their delicious moisture. Remove from oven and cool completely. Frost with lemon buttercream.
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Lemon Buttercream:

1 1/4 cups butter (2 1/2 sticks)
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
3 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 cup powdered sugar


Beat butter, lemon rind, and lemon juice in an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating to spreading consistency. Makes 2 3/4 cups.