Homemade lemon cupcakes with a homemade lemon buttercream frosting. These cupcakes are bursting with lemon flavor!
I decorated these cupcakes with blue sprinkles and Teddy Grahams for a boy baby shower, but these can be decorated for any occasion or theme.
I used my Wilton Large 1A tip to pipe the frosting onto these cupcakes…it is my go-to frosting tip! Â I like simple and love the frosting swirl. Â When it is time to put the frosting into the pastry bag, I put the pastry bag in a tall glass, tip side at the bottom of the glass, and roll the plastic down over the sides of the glass, so you can fill the pastry bag without getting the top of it all goopy.
I have made these cupcakes before, for a girl baby shower, and here’s how I decorated those:
I decorated these cupcakes as a Lemonade Cupcake, adding a pink straw, white and pink sprinkles and a lemon drop candy! Â Even though these two cupcakes were made for baby showers, you could use these for any sort of birthday party or celebration!
Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream Frosting
Print RecipeIngredients
- 1 egg
- 1 cup white granulated sugar
- 2/3 cup buttermilk (I used powdered buttermilk which equals 2 1/2 tablespoons powder and 2/3 cup water)
- 1/2 cup canola oil
- 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons lemon zest
- 2 tablespoons sour cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons lemon emulsion or extract
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons whole wheat flour (or you can use all-purpose flour instead)
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- pinch of salt
- Lemon Buttercream Frosting:
- 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, cold and cut into cubes
- 5 cups powdered sugar
- 2 teaspoons lemon emulsion or extract
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
Instructions
CUPCAKES: Preheat oven to 350-degrees and line cupcake pans with liners (you should get approximately 14 cupcakes). Set aside.
In the bowl of your electric mixer, add the egg, sugar, buttermilk, oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, sour cream and both extracts. Whisk until smooth.
With the mixer on low, slowly add the flours, nutmeg, baking soda and salt into your batter. Mix until just incorporated. My batter was not completely smooth and this is okay. You don't want to over mix.
Fill cupcake liners two-thirds full of batter and bake one cupcake pan at a time for 18-minutes. Use a toothpick to test the center of your cupcake after 18-minutes to check for doneness. If there's no raw batter on the toothpick, then your cupcakes are done! A few crumbs are ok...you don't want dry, over baked cupcakes.
Once cupcakes are baked and cool enough to handle, remove the cupcakes from the cupcake pan and place on wire rack to cool. I wait to frost my cupcakes until the day I need them. Place unfrosted cupcakes in an airtight container at room temperature until ready to frost.
FROSTING: In the bowl of your electric mixer, add the cubed butter. Using the paddle attachment beat the butter for 4-minutes on medium-high speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Next, slowly add two cups of powdered sugar to the butter and mix on low until incorporated. Add 1 teaspoon of lemon extract and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and mix until combined.
Add two cups of powdered sugar to the mixer and mix on low until it is incorporated. Once incorporated, turn the mixer to medium-high speed and mix for 3-minutes.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the last cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon lemon extract, 2 tablespoons heavy cream and the lemon zest to the bowl. Mix on low until incorporated and once incorporated, turn the speed to medium-high and mix for 6-minutes.
Frost cooled cupcakes using desired frosting method.
Notes
Frosting recipe makes enough to frost 24 cupcakes. I had leftover frosting, which I used to frost cookies with.
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