I'm celebrating a couple things today. First, a few days ago, I celebrated being married 35 years to my wonderful husband. Second, I celebrate being together with you for two years. Two years! I'm Happy Together with my husband. And I'm Happy Together with each of you. I've made a very happy cupcake to share with all of you in recognition of all this happiness! I'm so happy, I'm Laughing Out Loud!
It's been two years since my first post, folks!
Two years since I cast all fears aside and dove in!
I've loved every minute, every experiment, every success!
And I love sharing all of this with you!
Last year, on my first birthday, I was excited to report a total of 10,374 page visits since beginning.
This year, I can hardly contain myself with the joy of seeing that I have a total of 51,773 page visits!
What the heck!
When I write each post, I don't imagine I'm talking to 51,773 people.
I imagine its each one of you, sitting here in my kitchen, sharing goodies and conversation.
I talk like I do to my near and dear friends when they come to call.
I hope you can feel that ease and my genuine love for what I do in the things I say.
Whether you're one of my visitors from China, Russia, Poland, Vietnam, or any of the other countries represented in my traffic stats, I love that you come and see what I have waiting for you!
So - many thanks to all of you for visiting - and many thanks for sharing my link through
Facebook and Pinterest.
Also, I've had some shout outs from BuzzFeed and other websites that have really helped as well.
So keep sharing - please!
The birth of my recipe today came from a call from a darling young lady I know, Paola.
She was getting married and was wondering if I could make some goodies for her reception.
She requested something citrus.
After discussing what else she was serving, I decided on a mini citrus cupcake.
I had Lemons, Oranges, and Limes on hand and debated which ones to use.
But why choose between them?
Why not invite them all to the mix?
Therefore, the Lemon, Orange, Lime Cupcake aka,
LOL Cupcake,
was born!
And you will be laughing out loud - LOL - when you take a bite!
Well, right after you say WOW!
These pack a citrus punch!
You'll need two of each citrus fruit.
For the wedding, I made my white cake from scratch.
You can find that recipe in my Cherry Cordial Cupcake post.
But for these today, I'm going to show you how to bump up a white cake mix.
These work up quickly - and before you know it - you'll have a sunshine citrus convention going on on your countertop!
LOL Cupcakes
makes 24 cupcakes
1 box white cake mix
ingredients as listed on mix
1 lemon
1 orange
1 lime
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake tins with paper liners. Set aside.
Pour cake mix in a bowl. Using a zester, take the zest off the outsides of the lemon, orange, and lime and place it in the bowl with the mix. Cut each fruit in half and squeeze out their juice into a measuring cup. Place the combined juices into a saucepan with an equal amount of sugar - i.e., if your total combined lemon, orange, and lime juices come to 2/3 cup, add 2/3 cup sugar to them in the saucepan. Stir and heat over medium heat until the sugar dissolves and it just starts to simmer. Remove from heat and let cool while you finish making the cake.
Add the remaining ingredients called for in the cake mix and mix according to package instructions.
Fill the cupcake liners 2/3 full with batter and bake 15 - 18 minutes. You don't want to let too much brown get on the tops! They should spring back when lightly touched. Let the cupcakes cool completely on a rack.
LOL Buttercream Frosting
1 c. unsalted butter, softened (227 g)
3 1/2 c. powdered sugar, (410 g)
1 c. lemon curd, make your own or use store bought
zest half of:
1 lemon
1 orange
1 lime
Zest only half of each fruit, reserving the remaining rind for the garnish on top.
Place zest in a mixer bowl with the butter and powdered sugar. Start mixing on low until the sugar is incorporated, then turn to medium high and beat until fluffy - about 5 minutes. Add the lemon curd and mix on medium speed until well-combined.
When the cupcakes are cool, prick the tops of each cupcake with a toothpick about 7 times. Place about 1/4 cup of the citrus simple syrup in a small bowl and, using a pastry brush, brush the tops with a couple coats of the syrup. Let sit for a few minutes to let the syrup work its way down into the cake.
Then pipe the frosting onto each cupcake and top with the remaining zest from the fruits.
Note - To fully utilize the citrus, you can zest the fruits for the cake mix, then use the juice from those for the liquid for your cake. The mix usually calls for water - so I'd see how much juice you get and then add water to make the amount needed. Flavor plus! Then I'd zest the fruits needed for the frosting and reserve half for the garnish, juice the fruits and make the simple syrup out of that juice. You will have simple syrup left over - which you can use on chicken and fish, in fruit salads, and add to club soda for a great drink!
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