There are times that I am thankful I can pull a recipe out of thin air (or a cookbook), and this particular day was one of them! My dad needed to bring to a picnic, which normally would end up turning into a $20 - $25 trip to the bakery or grocery store. That usually results in a lot of cruddy dessert no one really wants, or something that tastes delicious, but does not yield a lot for people to eat - quite the conundrum!
Cupcakes have saved my butt, yet again! I pulled out a trusty vanilla cake recipe, some confectioner's sugar, butter, and 2 lemons and got to work!
Mini Lemon Cupcakes
Yields approximately 40 cupcakes
Ingredients
Cake Batter
Adapted from a Kitchen Aid recipe
2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/3 cups sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup low fat milk
2 eggs
Juice of 2 lemons
Icing
If you do not want to make your icing from scratch, you can either buy lemon flavored icing, or add the zest to vanilla frosting to give it a lemon flavor!
1/2 cup softened butter
Approximately 1 cup confectioner's sugar
Zest of two lemons
A few drops of yellow food coloring
Yellow decorating sugar
To Prepare the Cupcakes
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix all of the dry batter ingredients together in a bowl.
3. Add and mix in the wet ingredients and mix until the batter is smooth.
4. Either spray your muffin tin with non-stick spray or line with cupcake papers.
5. Spoon the batter into the mini-muffin tins so each tin is 3/4 of the way full.
6. Cook for 10 -15 minutes, or until cupcakes are firm to the touch and bounce back when pressed on.
7. Remove from the pan and cool on a rack.
8. While your cupcakes are cooling, beat the butter and lemon zest for the icing together in a bowl.
9. Add the confectioner's sugar slowly until the icing is smooth and creamy, and is not runny or lumpy.
10. Once your icing has reached the desired consistency add a few drops of yellow icing.
11. When your cupcakes are cool, ice them, decorate with sugar, and enjoy!
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