lemon cupcakes with blueberry buttercream frosting

The weather around here the past couple of weeks has been totally delicious.  I love the cold winter temperatures, and the boots and pea coats that come along with it, but after a few months of freezing cold the 60s & sunny has been a welcome change of pace.  The shift in weather and temperatures brings a nice change in food preferences along with it (I really can find a way to relate everything back to food).  I go from craving pasta with heavy sauces, soups, and hot drinks to wanting light salads, fresh crunchy vegetables and nice iced coffees.  As far as dessert goes I become obsessed with basically anything fresh & bright, like peaches and lemons and berries.  So when thinking about what I was going to bake for Easter this year, it didn't take much time to settle on the flavor combo that I wanted.  A few weeks ago one of my favorite people in the world, Mandie, made a delicious Blueberry Lemon Tea Cake and from the moment I ate three slices of it I have not been able to get the flavor combination out of my mind.  Lemon and blueberry it was!  The hardest part was deciding what form the flavors would take...a layer cake, a bundt cake, scones?

I researched online for a while and after taking into account what other desserts would be made (a peach galette and a chocolate peanut butter cheesecake, in addition to fruit salad and a ice cream pink bunny that my Grammy always brings) I decided that cupcakes were the route to take.  With there already being three things that needed to be sliced and served, cupcakes would be a nice contrast.  Lemon cupcakes with blueberry buttercream frosting via Baking With Basil were perfect.

The minute that I started juicing & zesting these lemons I knew that I had made the correct decision.  Nothing says happy & spring like the smell of lemons.  I used to eat them alone & drink lemon juice when I was younger...our love runs that deep.  I, in keeping with my usual tradition of making everything 45x more complicated than it needs to be, found a way to make this easy process take double the amount of time it should have.  You know how you are suppose to zest the lemons first and then juice them?  Yeah - this idiot did it the other way around.  I immediately regretted that decision, however, when I went to zest the floppy lemon half and could not find a way to keep the thing from sliding out of my hands.

Aside from that little issue, that I completely created myself, making this batter was simple & quick.  Normal routine: creaming the butter & sugar, eggs one at a time, and adding the flour in three separate batches alternating with buttermilk - all while being careful not to overmix the batter.  The only difference between this and a standard vanilla cupcake recipe was the addition of the yummy lemon zest & lemon juice.  The zest of three lemons plus a couple of tablespoons of juice really set this over the edge.  Per my usual, I thought about skipping the whole "oven" process of the recipe and just sitting down at the table with my kitchen aid bowl and a spoon.  But reminding myself that people were going to be coming over and would expect to, you know, be fed and stuff kept me pressing on.

This was my favorite part of making the cupcakes - the blueberry buttercream.  I was nervous about making it because I am not great with frostings in general (for some reason I never am completely in love with any frosting I make) but having to worry about a fresh ingredient that has the capacity to really wet the frosting & make it fall apart?  Um, anxiety attack.  Once I saw this though, I pretty much forgot that I was in the process of a high stakes operation (exaggerating & dramatizing) and just stared at the gorgeous colors.  I'm no photographer, so this picture does not even do it complete justice.  Such natural beauty there.

It turns out that I really should not have been shaking over making this frosting, it was so easy and not much different from making a normal frosting.  This picture above is the pureed blueberries mixing with the creamed butter.  And again with the photo not doing it complete justice - in person this was just stunning.  I honestly wanted to just stop here, forget the frosting, put this in a bowl, and stare at it for the rest of my life.  It kind of sounds like I'm kidding, I'm sure, but I'm not.  I would honestly stare at this for the rest of my life.  I'm not sure what exactly that says about me...but I'm completely okay with whatever it is.

Here are the finished little cakes!  What I have chosen to omit is the complete meltdown (no exaggerating, yes dramatizing) that I had in between the picture of the butter + blueberries and what this nice, calm, and organized one shows.  I am a perfectionist, but I am not an artist, and that means that attempting to decorate baked goods is never what I would call a "stress-free experience."  Every single time I go into it telling myself that they are not going to look perfect and that is fine, the world is not going to fall off it's axis and I am going to be able to continue on living my life.  And every single time I end up in a bad mood wondering why my cupcakes don't look like Buddy Valastro made them.  I am nothing if not predictable.

In the end it all did come together (like it always does, Meg, like it. always. does.), I was happy with how these looked.  Yes - the frosting was a little wetter than I would have liked, due to not using as much powered sugar as I should have.  And not all the swirls were perfect circles, due to my shaking hand and inability to draw a circle (yay, I'm not a serial killer!).  But I thought they looked pretty cute.  My favorite part was the fact that the color of the frosting was completely natural, all due to the gorgeous blueberries - no food coloring needed!  Love that.

These taste amazing and I will certainly be making them again.  They are perfect for spring & summer - when you still want to be eating sweets but you want to disguise the heaviness of them and trick yourself into thinking you are still sticking with "eating light."  The tart lemon and blueberry flavors perfectly complement, not compete with, each other.  My family especially loved them because they are not really a cupcake that you would see everyday and the brightness of the flavors matched the gorgeous and sunny weather.  The next time I make these, the only thing I would do different is add more powered sugar to the frosting.  The recipe called for 5-6 cups and I used 4, maybe.  I know that is why my frosting was wet/almost falling apart but I did not add anymore because the people I was serving these too really dislike sweet things (they are NUTS).  Next time though - they are going to have to deal with it. :)

I linked to the recipe above but here it is again - Lemon Cupcakes with Blueberry Buttercream Frosting by Baking With Basil.  Before I go get another cupcake (I have to take advantage of it being a holiday before that privilege expires!) I just wanted to share two pictures of what I ate today because food is delicious and it clearly owns me...

Easter Dinner

Easter Dessert

xx Meg