Lemon Cupcakes

One of hubby’s coworkers, George, has been asking for Lemon cupcakes ever since I made these lemon cookies. Hubby and I both weren’t huge fans of the cookies, but George LOVED them.

After the January DB challenge, I had about a cup or so of leftover lemon curd. I could have eaten it all with a spoon, but I figured I could mix them into a cupcake instead.

I used the vanilla cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and added about 3/4 cup of lemon curd to the batter at the end. Then I put a teaspon of lemon curd directly on top of the cooled cupcakes. Last, I topped them with cool-whip frosting with the rest of the lemon curd mixed into it. I also threw some lemon zest into the frosting for texture.

These cupcakes were great. The lemon flavor was subtle and the cool-whip frosting balanced the flavors well. The recipe made 14 cupcakes, 12 of which went to work with hubby. He reported back that George ate 4 and said that he loves me

Lemon Cupcakes – adapted from Vanilla cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take over The World – makes 14
1 cup soy milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp cornstarch
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup non-hydrogenated margarine, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extrat, caramel extract, or more vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 and line muffin pan with cupcake liners.

Whisk the soy milk and vinegar in a measuring cup and set aside a few minutes to get good and curdled.

Sift the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl and mix.

In a separate large bowl, use a handheld mixer at medium speed to cream the margarine and sugar for about 2 minutes until light and fluffy, but don’t beat past 2 minutes. Beat in the vanilla and other extract, if using, then alternate beating in the soy milk mixture and dry ingredients, stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl a few times.

I then folded in 3/4 cup of lemon curd.

Fill cupcake liners two-thirds of the way and bake for 20-22 minutes until done. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely before frosting.

Cool-Whip frosting – not sure of the original recipe, but here’s what I did:
1 tub Cool Whip
1 pkg vanilla pudding
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup lemon curd
2 tsp lemon zest

Combine pudding mix and milk and stir until mostly dissolved. Add remaining ingredients and stir until combined.

To Assemble cupcakes:
After cupcakes have cooled, scoop 1 tsp of lemon curd onto the top of each cupcake. Spread lemon curd with a knife to cover top of cupcake.

Pipe frosting on top of lemon curd.

Sprinkle with yellow sugar.