First I decided to make a lemon cupcake. A coworker of mine (who we shall call Yenifeeeer for anonymity purposes) asked for a lemon cupcake for her birthday. Her exact request was a lemon cupcake that was definitely lemon, but not too lemony. She wanted something that would make her say "mmm, lemon" (her words, not mine) :)
Lemon Cupcake
I was at the store with my mom getting everything I needed for the lemon cupcakes when my mom noticed they were selling Meyer Lemons. Apparently they aren't very commonly sold at grocery stores here in California (at least not at my grocery store). If you are like me then you probably don't know what a Meyer Lemon is and how it differs from a regular lemon. Luckily for me my mom is an endless pit of knowledge (seriously, I would list her as my phone-a-friend in a heartbeat!) Meyer Lemons are thought to be a cross between a lemon and a tangerine which is why their peels have an orange tinge to them. They also have a strong aroma and tend to be sweeter and less acidic tasting, which makes them great for cooking. I decided to trust my mom and give them a shot which is a good thing because their flavor won me over!
For the cake I decided to use a pretty basic vanilla cake recipe but added in fresh lemon juice and zest from one whole lemon. A little tip I learned from my mom is to always roll a lemon on the counter before cutting it open to juice it. This loosens up the juice and you will get A LOT more juice out of it. The cake turned out really good; it was light and fluffy. The only problem I encountered was that a few of the cakes sort of exploded out of the liner. Exploded isn't really the best word to describe it but I just don't know how to better say it. I could be totally wrong but I think it had something to do with the lemon juice. If it ever happens again I'll take a picture of it. Anyways, I decided to taste one of the semi-exploded cakes before tossing it to see what kind of "mmm, lemon" flavor i was dealing with. It did have a nice lemon flavor but was definitely more on the subtle side so I decided to core out the center and fill it with a lemon curd filling.
Once the centers were filled with the lemon curd it was time to move on to the frosting. I decided to make a lemon butter cream. Again, i used fresh lemon juice and zest. Can I just say this was quite possibly one of my favorite butter creams that I have ever made! It's taken me a while to find a good butter cream recipe that didn't taste too buttery or too sickly sweet and now I've found it. Unfortunately, I was baking at my mom's house so I didn't have all my supplies with me, including my piping bags and tips, so I wasn't able to pipe the frosting on and make it pretty and had to settle for using a spatula. Lastly, i sprinkled edible gold dust on for a finishing touch.
That's the finished product, what do you think? I'm not usually one to toot my own horn but I have to say this was a very good lemon cupcake. Even Mike, who admittedly doesn't like lemon flavored anything, thought it was really good.
Caramel Apple Cupcake
Later in the week Mike and I were having his family over for a BBQ and I decided to make.....CUPCAKES!! Big surprise, right? I came across a recipe that used fresh apples and home made caramel that sounded yummy so I thought I'd give it a try. The cakes were actually a brown sugar apple cake. I used my food processor to finely dice up 4 Granny Smith apples and mixed them into the batter. The cakes turned out really tasty but definitely weren't super sweet. They actually would be really good on their own as a muffin.
Now for the fun part: home made caramel! A word of advice, avoid the urge to sample the caramel as soon as it's made!!! Even though I knew it was super hot I couldn't resist myself and dipped the tip of my finger in the caramel. It felt like the skin was melting off my finger, no joke!
After letting the caramel cool completely (about an hour), i mixed in powdered sugar and had some delicious, though very sweet caramel frosting! And this time I was home and excited to be able to use my piping bags to put on the frosting.
They were yummy and I was very surprised at how much it actually tasted like a caramel apple!
