Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream Frosting
Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream Frosting is the only lemon cupcakes recipe you will ever need! Made with fresh lemon juice and tons of flavor, these moist lemon cupcakes are zingy, refreshing and topped with lemon buttercream frosting.
Ingredients
Lemon Cupcakes
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup softened butter
- 2 cup sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice about 1 1/2 lemons
- 2 tablespoon lemon zest about 2 lemons
- 1 cup milk
Lemon Buttercream Frosting
- 1 cup butter softened
- 3 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 lemon juiced and zested
- 2 tablespoons milk
Instructions
- To make your Lemon Cupcakes, preheat oven to 375 degrees F and line 24 cupcake pan cups with paper liners.
- Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl. In another bowl, beat the softened butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, beating each egg until incorporated before adding the next. Mix in the vanilla extract, lemon juice and lemon zest.
- Gently mix the flour mixture into the butter mixture, one third at a time, alternating and add the milk. Beat until just combined; do not over mix.
- Fill the prepared cupcake liners with batter 3/4 full, and bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 17 minutes. Let the cupcakes cool in the pans for about 10 minutes before removing them to finish cooling on a rack.
- To make your Lemon Buttercream Frosting, in a medium sized mixing bowl, sift the powdered sugar. Add the softened butter and cream together on low speed until the powdered sugar and butter are completely combined. Add in a pinch of salt and then the lemon juice and zest.
- Continue to beat on medium speed until the frosting is light and creamy. If frosting is too thin, add a bit more powdered sugar. If it is too thick, add a tablespoon of water or milk to thin it out.
Notes
- Sift that powdered sugar before adding it to your butter for your buttercream frosting. I know I say it every time.. trust your friend Heather!!! … sift the powdered sugar or you will end up with lumps of sugar in your frosting and no one wants that!
- Don’t have a large piping bag to make pretty whoop-whoop cupcakes? Grab a large zip top bag, snip a bit off the bottom corner, add a decorating tip and then fill that bad boy up with your frosting. I find if I push my bag into a tall tumbler glass, I can fill it a lot easier with a lot less mess. Keep in mind that big fancy frosting jobs take a ton of frosting to accomplish.. double that frosting recipe if you are getting fancy.
- Bring your eggs to room temperature before using them. Room temp eggs emulsify better and are fluffier than eggs right out of the refrigerator.
- You want to make sure you are measuring your flour correctly. If you scoop out a measuring cup of flour directly from the bag, you will pack in way too much flour. To avoid this, spoon the flour into the measuring cup until its overfilled and then use the back of a butter knife to level the measuring cup at the top. Now you have the perfect flour measurement!
- Use a small measuring cup to add your batter to your cupcake tins. This way your cupcakes are all the same size and save on (most) of the mess.
- A trick for bringing refrigerated eggs to room temperature quicker is to let them sit in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes.
- Buy milk while you are at the store. Chocolate cupcakes needs to be eaten with a big glass of milk. Buy milk.
