Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes

Cupcakes. I made some. I like making cupcakes, any excuse will do. These are Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes.

You know you want to try it.

The cupcake is lemon. To make it use a standard yellow cake recipe, any one will do, with 1/8 tsp of lemon oil and two tsp of lemon zest. Lemon oil is strong so you just need a tiny, little bit.  You can get some here at King Arthur Flour. The one ounce will last you a loooooong time.

The strawberry frosting is here at Glorious Treats. I love this recipe! Now that I'm an adult I am finding that most non-chocolate frosting is too sweet. Sweet cupcakes combined with sweeter frosting... ick, it's just too much. Then I found the recipe above. She uses cream cheese but it doesn't taste too cream cheesy (not that cream-cheesy flavor is a bad thing) it's simply less sweet. I also love how she uses strawberry preserves, not extract, to give it the strawberry flavor. (I HATE strawberry extract. It smells like a strawberry-scented eraser. I like strawberry-scented erasers but I have no desire to eat one.) It's some good frosting, let me tell you! I highly recommend it!

Please don't eat!

OK, I mentioned it so I had to do it. Here are some cute (kawaii), Japanese, strawberry-scented erasers available here at Cool Pencil Case.com. I may have to get some for Lu's back to school stuff.


Anyway, back to cupcakes. I have also found that piping the frosting onto the cupcakes is much easier and looks much nicer than spreading it on with a knife. As a general rule, the fact that it just looks nicer wouldn't be enough to make me switch for everyday cupcakes. It is actually easier. I stuck a lemon slice candy on the top just to make it cute. I ran out of summer-y cupcake papers, no one cared, leading me to believe that I use cute cupcake papers mostly for my own benefit.

I'll be doing more baking posts as time goes by. I'll even have some tips for you. I'm a pretty good cake-baker so I'll be sharing what I know.

See you tomorrow cupcake!

I'll be Back.

I have recovered now (finally). Now I will be spending the weekend picking up and getting caught up. Sunday I'll be baking for Lu's "Celebrate Summer Party" on Monday. The theme is Rainbows so I will be trying the rainbow cake, *gasp* "Not the rainbow cake!" Yes, the rainbow cake as featured on Whisk Kid.

Whoa Boy

I might need to have my head examined. Actually they did that for real last Wednesday. My head is fine. It's surprising. Anyway, the kids will love it! We'll see how it goes...

I have some upcoming posts that I hope you'll take a look at:

• I'll be showing you how the party went and more specifically how my baking went, The rainbow cake isn't the only thing I'm attempting to make making.
• I'm refinishing my great grandmother's dresser so there will be a "During & After" post since I forgot to take a "Before" picture.
• I'm also going to make my own drawer dividers for my kitchen and if it turns out well, I'll tell you what I did. If it doesn't turn out well I'll share the failure, why? because failure can be amusing.
• I just got the new cookbook from Miette which I'll be baking from and subsequently reviewing just as soon as my six inch cake pans get here. I'll say this, the book is lovely and its contents sure look delectable. 

There! Now I've posted so I HAVE to follow through. I may do a post on all of my half-finished projects, it will either be extremely motivating or very depressing.

Until Monday!

H

Hello Cupcake!

Nothing marks an occasion or makes an occasion like a cupcake. I'll admit, I'm a cupcake fanatic. I like to make up occasions to make them. I bought these just the other day to make cupcakes for the end of school.

All of that adorable yumminess comes from my new favorite Etsy store Cupcake Social. Check out the pretty paper straws, so retro. I'm thinking vanilla milkshakes to go with the straws (that's right, I'm planning the menu around the accessories). Have a look at the cupcakes that can be made with these items.

Yummy huh?

So here are some lovely items that I purchased from Cupcake Social for Lucie's Paris-themed birthday party (Oooh la, la) scheduled in August, The purple sprinkles are from Sweet Estelle's.

The purple straws are downright pretty in person. I'm definitely thinking chocolate shakes for the party.

How about these for the 4th of July? Cupcakes with these would make a festive end to an Independence Day BBQ. How fun are those straws?

The cupcake wrappers and straws are from Sweet Estelle's,
the sugar stars are from  Baker's Bling and  the  sprinkles are from J Louise Design.

I'm kind of a lazy baker (honesty, refreshing? maybe?) so I love pretty wrappers, sugar toppers, and colorful sprinkles, they make creating fancy cupcakes simple. Here are some cute sugar toppers.

I want to get the gnomes to make cupcakes for my sister and I can see the ocean creatures on cupcakes for sea-side picnic. These can be had from Baker's Bling.

Lovely wrappers, from Cupcake Social.

Finally, what's up with the paper straws that are popping up all of the blogosphere? I love them, I may start collecting them. Here are some more from Sweet Estelle's and Cupcake Social.

Now I want a cupcake.