One of my best friend’s was having a baptism for her adorable baby girl and I offered to make cupcakes. I just knew I wanted something feminine and pretty. We decided on lavender as the theme color and we enjoyed a Friday night creating these. They turned out better than I expected, we could not find the flower cutout I wanted anywhere in town so we had to settle for one I already had. But, we made it work and had a lot of fun with the gum-paste and disco dust. My friend also got to create her first cupcake tower, it turned out so cute and the sparkle ribbon I couldn’t resist at the store looked wonderful.

For the cupcake flavors, I did a limonchello cupcake, with a lemon curd filling and limonchello cream cheese frosting and a chocolate cupcake with raspberry filling and a Swiss meringue butter-cream frosting. I will say this will be the last time I use this chocolate recipe, they just don’t hold up well to being cupcakes and they puff up so much in the oven its hard not to get an ugly “muffin top” on the cupcakes. They taste fabulous but just are not sturdy enough for cupcake production. They also make a lot of cupcakes, which is not necessarily a bad thing but no normal batch of frosting will cover them all so I had to make a half batch of chocolate cream cheese frosting to get them all covered.  I also  ran into another problem with the lemon cupcakes, the recipe only makes 12 cupcakes, which is fine but the amount of lemon curd was not nearly enough for all 12 in my opinion, therefore I have doubled the recipe below so you do not encounter the same problem. Also, the frosting recipe makes just barely enough (for my frosting taste), so it really would not hurt to do a double batch if you would like a little more frosting on top. As for the Limonchello, again not to diss this recipe but I would not go out and spend $25 on a bottle just for these cupcakes, I would use a lemon extract instead. I added a touch of lemon juice in my frosting to add more flavor, I have noted that below as well.

Limoncello Cupcakes:

Recipe adapted from: Brown eyed Baker

For the cupcakes: (makes 12 cupcakes)

1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 ounces (½ stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
2 tablespoons limoncello
½ cup buttermilk
¼ cup lemon juice
Zest of one lemon

For the Lemon Curd:

Zest of 4 lemons
1 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs + 2 egg yolks

For the cream cheese/limoncello frosting:

2 ounces (½ stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 tablespoon limoncello

1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

1.  Cupcakes: Preheat the oven to 350 F with the rack in the center of the oven. In a medium bowl combine the dry ingredients and whisk together, set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer add butter, cream cheese and sugar and beat with the paddle attachment on medium speed until light and creamy, (about 3 minutes). Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the limoncello and beat and additional minute. On low-speed add the flour mixture and buttermilk alternatively,beginning and ending with the flower mixture (so, flower-buttermilk, flower-buttermilk-flower).  Add the lemon juice and zest and mix on low-speed just until incorporated. Divide batter between 12 muffin tins. Bake for 20 minutes or until your inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely.
2.  Lemon curd: In a heavy medium saucepan, stir together the lemon zest, juice and sugar and bring to a simmer over medium heat. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs and egg yolks. Whisk the lemon mixture into the eggs to temper them (start with a very small stream and whisk constantly to keep the eggs from scrambling-take your time). Scrape the mixture back into the saucepan and place over medium heat, whisking constantly until it thickens, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat (at this point you can strain the it through a fine mesh strainer if you are concerned some of the egg might have scrambled-its a safe way to eliminate that concern). Cool completely.
3. Cream cheese/limoncello frosting: In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese on medium speed with the paddle attachment until light and creamy (about 3 minutes). Add the limoncello and lemon juice and beat for an additional minute. reduce speed to low and gradually add the sifted powdered sugar and beat until smooth.
4. Assemble the cupcakes: Cut a hole (cone shaped) into each cupcake with a small pairing knife. Fill each hole with the lemon curd and then replace the top (you may have to trim the pointy part of the cone to fit it back on). Frost the cupcake however you like, either with a pastry bag and star tip or use an off set spatula to smooth it on top. Decorate however you like.

Other:

I plan on having another post about making gumpaste flowers next month.

Swiss Meringue butter cream

Chocolate cream cheese frosting

Cupcake tower directions