Lemon Cupcakes w/ Vanilla & Cream Cheese Icing {Simply Delicious}

Tweet

Hello everyone :)  I am still up here in sunny Colorado enjoying a little R & R.  While I've been away, I have lined up some awesome guest posters to help out with things and share some of their yummy recipes with y'all.  This next guest poster comes to us all the way from Canada! 

Please welcome Jamie, from Simply Delicious.

Jamie and I met through Facebook as well :)  I thought it was pretty awesome to be able to meet someone who lives all the way in Canada ;)  She's been blogging for a little over a year now and has found her true calling as a food writer/blogger.  I have literally spent hours at night reading over past posts on her blog because I found myself relating to most of them. Not only do we connect on that level, we also connect on a foodie level as well!  She really enjoys baking and writing about her experiences in the kitchen and loves to conclude her posts with a few open ended questions for her readers to answer.  I <3 that idea and may steal it from her one day ;) 

So please give a warm Cooking With Libby welcome to Jamie........

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi I'm Jamie, also known as 'the girl writer' from The Journey of a Food Writer- I bake and cook and write about food! You can find out more about me and find my blog here: http://thegirlwriter.blogspot.com/.

Before making these cupcakes I had never seriously piped icing. I tried my hand at doing letters and roses for fun a couple of times, but I had never taken on a project as big as this. Boy was it harder than I ever thought! My vanilla icing was much too runny, and my cream cheese icing turned out much too thick! Both were very delicious but made frosting these cupcakes very difficult!

It was such a rainy day when I made these, and I definitely needed a springy pick me up, and I knew lemon was the perfect flavour to brighten up my day. These cupcakes are like little bites of spring in the palm of your hand- light and fluffy and intensely lemony. The bright yellow and pink colours are a definite plus too! These are the perfect cupcakes to start your spring baking, make for a spring birthday or to brighten up any cloudy day.


Lemon Cupcakes
(with vanilla and cream cheese icing)
 ~makes 12 cupcakes~

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup milk

1 tbsp grated lemon rind

1/4 cup lemon juice

10 drops lemon extract (optional)

2 eggs

1/2 cup unsalted butter

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350*F.

Combine sugar, flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl and stir to combine. Add the milk, lemon rind, juice and extract, eggs and butter. Beat with an electric mixer until combined, about three minutes.

Put baking cups into a 12 cup baking tray, and spoon batter into the cups until 2/3 full. Bake 30 mins. Cool 20 mins.  on wire rack before frosting.

At this point I just used some canned vanilla frosting and added some red food colouring. My boyfriend doesn't like cream cheese icing, but I do so I also made this......

Lemon Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients

4 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup cream cheese

2 tbsp grated lemon rind

1 tbsp lemon juice

10 drops of yellow food colouring (optional)

a couple tbsp of water, as necessary

All you have to do is beat the first 5 ingredients together and test for consistency once it's well blended. Add water as necessary, but be careful to not add too much because a little goes a long way. Pipe onto cupcakes and top with whatever you'd like!

Enjoy!

And thank you Libby for allowing me to be a guest blogger on your awesome blog!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't those cupcakes delish!!!  I think the kids and I will make these when we get back from our little trip ;) 

Thank you Jamie for sharing such a delightful recipe on the blog today! 

Go check her out at Simply Delicious when y'all get a chance ;) 

I have a few more guest posters coming up so to tuned.............