Cupcake 27 - Triple Lemon for Mother's Day

I'm behind, without a good excuse. Yes, I baked, but failed to blog. I went Lemon for Mom's Day. It was Mom's request, sorta. I think her words were, "I'll like anything you make, like lemon or chocolate, you know I'm easy." I was psyched. I checked in with Mom later on in the week, and bounced a filled lemon meringue cupcake or a coconut hostess type cupcake off of her. She was good, but reminded me that my brother and father, who are much less adventurous, may not like those choices. We were having a family dinner, so I was eager to please everyone. I mentally put the meringue away and forgot about the tinted pink coconut I was planning in my head. I went lemon. A very nice, if I do say so myself, triple lemon. Lemon curd played a starring role - I added it to both cupcake batter and frosting, along with lemon juice and zest. I also baked a batch of basic chocolate cupcakes and frosted them with lemon buttercream. An indulgence for me as much as Mom.

Lemon and chocolate is one of my all time favorite flavor combinations. I thought I had invented it at 13 working the summer at the church snowball stand. Between snowball customers, I had nothing but time on my hands, so naturally I experimented with flavors. After way too many snowballs and a summer-long sugar high, I concluded chocolate pretty much works with every flavor, except Batman. Blue stands alone. Lemon worked extrememly well with chocolate and held up flavor- wise to the eventual sweaty melt that brings a snowball to an end. Running a snowball stands at 13 is cool, and has much better fringe benefits than babysitting or a paper route.

Lemon Curd
1 T + 2 t lemon zest
1 C lemon juice, freshly squeezed. No cheating with the bottled stuff.
1 1/2 C sugar
4 eggs, room temperature
3/4 C + 2 T butter, unsalted, cut into chunks

Add sugar, zest, lemon juice and a pinch of salt in sauce pan, stir well. Add eggs and butter. Cook over medium-low heat stirring constantly, until thick and first bubbles appear, 10-12 minutes. Pour into fine mesh seive to remove any chunks. Cover and chill.

For cupcakes, replace liquid in standard yellow cupcake receipe with 1 C fresh lemon juice, 2 T lemon zest and 2/3 cup lemon curd.

Lemon Buttercream

1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
8 ozs cream cheese at room temperature
2 T lemon zest
3 T lemon juice
1/3 c lemon curd
4 C powdered sugar, sifted
pinch of salt

Cream butter, cream cheese, salt and lemon zest until light and fluffy. Add lemon curd and mix well. Add powdered sugar in 3 installments, mixing well and scrapping down sides. Add lemon juice. Set mixer to high speed and whip for 4-5 minutes until frosting reaches desired consistancy.