Lemon Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for a friend's potluck party to celebrate her birthday and housewarming! A special day indeed, so cake mix cupcakes are not good enough! However, scratch made lemon cupcakes with lemon cream cheese will do.

Lemon Cupcakes

If you love lemons, you will dig these cupcakes. They have the perfect balance of sweet and tartness; especially with the lemon cream cheese frosting. The cake is derived from Ina Garten's Yogurt Lemon Cake recipe and the frosting is from an online source that I tweaked a bit.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 C. flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 C. plain yogurt
• 1 1/3 C. divided
• 3 xtra large eggs
• 2 tsp of grated lemon zest
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 C. veggie oil
• 1/3 C. lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line your cupcake pan.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, 1 cup sugar, eggs, lemon zest and vanilla. Whisk in the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Fold in the veggie oil into the batter. Pour batter into the muffin cups using 1/4 measuring cup. Bake for about 18-20 min.

Meanwhile, cook 1/3 C. lemon juice and remaining 1/3 C. sugar in a small pan until sugar is dissolved. Set aside.

When they're done, allow them to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Place the cupcakes on a baking rack. While the cake is still warm, dip the muffin tops into the lemon-sugar mixture for 3-5 seconds and allow them to soak in. Let them cool before frosting.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

• 8 oz cream cheese
• 1/4 C. softened butter
• 2 tsp grated lemon zest
• 2 T. lemon juice
• 4 C. powdered sugar

Beat the cream and butter together, add lemon zest and lemon juice. Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time while beating.

Simply decorated with sprinkles.

I had some left over lemon juice-sugar mixture, so what did I do with it? I made lemonade!

Mmm, refreshing!

And to conclude this post...

Amen to that!