Lemondrop Cupcakes

These are by far my favorite. They are super fun to make with just a little more patience. So if you want to spend some time in the kitchen, these are pretty good. When I made these, I doubled the original recipe (which you might want to do too) and everyone was in love with them. Also, instead of making a lemon icing (I thought that might be lemon overload), I made a vanilla buttercream. So in this post, I'm including my favorite recipe for a vanilla buttercream.

Yields about 10 cupcakes

Ingredients for Cupcakes

• 1 cup All purpose flour (Yes, all purpose. No, you cannot use another kind of flour)
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup (1/2 a stick) unsalted butter, room temp.
• 2 large eggs
• 6 tablespoons buttermilk
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (I used the prepared kind. I don't really think you need to use fresh in this recipe, but you can if you'd like. If you're using fresh, you'll need 1 lemon)
• 2 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest (I used about three lemons for their zest and just grated the outside of the lemons. It worked great.)
• OPTIONAL: Lemon candies for decoration. Heed my warning about using candies on this recipe! The warning is down a little bit.

Ingredients for Frosting

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp/softened (NOT MELTED!)
• Up to 8 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1/2 cup milk (any kind will do. I use lactose free milk and it works just fine.)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

So here's what you do:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line your muffin tins with cupcake papers.
2. Beat sugar and butter together in large bowl until light and fluffy.
   
3. Beat in your eggs one at a time.
4. Beat in dry ingredients in three additions alternating with buttermilk in two additions.
5. Add in the lemon juice and lemon zest.
6. Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake tins. (Be careful not to over fill!)
7. Bake your cupcakes for about 15 - 20 minutes. Make sure to keep an eye on them at about the 15 minute mark.

For the frosting:

1. Beat butter until light and airy.
2. Add 4 cups of sugar, milk, and vanilla.
3. Beat until smooth and creamy.
4. Slowly add the remaining sugar 1 cup at a time until you reach the consistency you want.

Wait until your cupcakes have completely cooled (aka room temperature) before you attempt to put frosting on them. Otherwise, your icing is going to melt and just run all over your cupcakes and become a huge mess.

Frost your cupcakes using a spatula, a piping bag, or a freezer bag with the tip cut off. Here's my WARNING about the OPTIONAL lemon candies: once you're done frosting and if you're going to be decorating them with candies, make sure you wait to add the candies to the tops of your cupcakes until right before you're going to serve them! I didn't think about my candies melting from the moisture in the frosting so I added them as soon as I was done frosting. The candies ended up "running" and leaving a yellow melted trail. So unless you want your beautiful cupcake tops to look like runny eggs, wait until right before you're going to serve them to add the lemon candy.

And last, but not least, ENJOY!