lemon surprise white chocolate cupcakes

white chocolate cake

• 1½ cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. salt
• ½ cup butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 4 oz. white chocolate, chopped & melted
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 cup + 1 tbsp. milk
• 2 oz. white chocolate, finely chopped

1. preheat oven to 325°
2. whisk together flour, baking powder and salt
   
3. cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy
4. melt white chocolate
5. add chocolate and vanilla to the butter/sugar mixture
6. add ⅓ of the dry ingredients, ½ the milk, ⅓ of the dry ingredients, ½ the milk and the remaining ⅓ of the dry ingredients – mix just until combined
7. fold in chopped white chocolate
8. fill cupcake liners ¾ full and bake 20-25 minutes (ours took 25) until toothpick comes out clean

lemon white chocolate frosting

• 6 oz. white chocolate, chopped
• ¼ cup heavy cream
• 1 cup butter
• 1-2 cups powdered sugar
• fresh squeezed lemon juice to taste

1. stir white chocolate and whipping cream over low heat until melted and smooth
2. cool
3. add butter, 1 cup powdered sugar and lemon juice, beat on high until light and fluffy
4. continue adding lemon juice and powdered sugar until you get the consistency and flavor you desire – ours was super tart

we just used jell-o lemon flavored instant pudding as the filling because it has a nice lemon flavor without being overpowering – plus it was a spur of the moment decision – it would also be good with a lemon curd filling (or whatever floats your boat)

for the topping we just used a simple lemon sugar that i mixed up using the zest from the lemons that we juiced for the frosting

hopefully everyone enjoys – we welcome any comments, suggestions, critiques and especially praise

- m

*there was going to be a photo – sadly the ones i took yesterday did not please me – one may still appear but no promises*

i’m blaming it on the fact that:

• i baked 8 dozen cupcakes on saturday (5 cake flavors, 4 frostings)
• i went to a birthday party that lasted 8 hours
• i hung out with a cousin (twice) that i hadn’t seen in 30 years
• i went out to dinner with friends
• i went out to dinner with other friends
• i cleaned the house
• i made a gigantic mess in my kitchen (and cleaned it up)
• i talked to my cousin in germany until 0430 and
• i played hide the hedgehog for what seemed like hours

the recipe is coming along with photos from all the cupcakes i made this weekend – and maybe a bonus recipe or two – i just need to sit on the couch for a while and motivate myself to go work out first

-m

the mystery box ingredient for this month is white chocolate – this posed a slight problem since neither of us really like white chocolate but we didn’t let that deter us and immediately started thinking what flavors we could pair with the white chocolate to create something that we would actually want to eat

over lunch on thursday we brainstormed some ideas to try out – they included boysenberry, peach, kiwi, pear, blackberry, orange, lemon and lime and after a quick stop at the markets to see what we could find we were ready to dive head first into our new adventure

sadly it turned out to be a bad day for baking – we made 4 kinds of cupcakes (boysenberry, blackberry white chocolate chunk, kiwi, and pear white chocolate chunk) and all 4 dozen ended up in the trash can before we could even begin to think about making fillings or frostings -  down but not out we decided to take a couple days off and try to regroup before giving it another shot

after taking the weekend off, surfing the interwebs and meditating on the powers of white chocolate (ok that last part didn’t happen but you never know) we met up again on monday afternoon hoping for better results – we decided to start out with a simple white chocolate cupcake and after it turned out edible we beefed it up by adding actual pieces of white chocolate which happily also turned out well which was good because we were really tired of  cupcake failure  – feeling confident in our cupcake skills again we decided to move on to the frosting and filling segment of the adventure

deciding not to get overconfident we once again decided to start out with a simple white chocolate frosting (i won’t even tell you what we thought it looked like), we frosted one of the cupcakes added some really pretty gold sanding sugar and sat down for a mini taste test

• erica – way too much white chocolate
• michelle – eh, it’s ok – but definitely not worth the calories and the extra lunges that are going to be necessary
• jason – it’s ok

not wanting to throw out the frosting we started thinking about how we could change it so that was less white chocolate and more delicious – the answer came to us in the form of a bowl fresh squeezed lemon juice (unused from the day of  baking gone wrong) that i had stashed in the fridge for a rainy day – turns out that today was that rainy day, despite the fact that it’s 100 degrees outside and i’m pretty sure the kitchen was the last place that most people would have chosen to be – while rooting around for the lemon juice i also managed to dig up the actual lemons that i had stuck in a ziploc and now our course was set

we added some of the lemon juice and powdered sugar to the white chocolate frosting to make a lemony white chocolate glaze, used the zest from the lemons to make some lemon sugar,  whipped up some lemon pudding to use for the filling and voila! – time for another mini taste test

• erica – deliciousness
• michelle – yum, definitely worth a couple extra lunges
• marissa – it tastes like cake with a lemon cookie on top
• jason – i like the filling, it was nice

all in all it was a winning recipe even for us non-white chocolate lovers and hopefully it holds it’s own in the contest

signing off until our next cupcake adventure

-e & m

The winner of August’s Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge will receive prizes from:

• Bake It Pretty; $5 electronic gift card
• Beanilla; 3 Indian + 3 Tahitian vanilla beans & a jar of Ground Vanilla
• CT2Designs; a cupcake ring
• Miss Kitty Creations; a cupcake charm of your choice
• Sweet Cuppin Cakes; a prize pack worth $25

Thank you to all our prize sponsors!

• michelle – one half of the dynamic cupcake baking duo – the older (but not necessarily wiser or more mature half)
• erica – the other half of the dynamic cupcake baking duo – the younger (and far more creatively talented half)
• marissa – project manager and all around bossy britches
• jason – second-in-command bossy britches and expert food taster
• jeb – in charge of protecting our freedom so we are free to fritter our time away baking cupcakes (he also likes to eat them)

the why:

• plans for world cupcake domination one world wide interwebs follower at a time
  
• dreams of opening our own cupcake bakery
  

the where:

• currently we are all in suburban maryland – south of baltimore, north of dc – right in the middle of awesome (except for jeb who is off doing super top secret army things in far away lands)