Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Mousse Frosting

Today, I wanted to share a fabulous cupcake recipe with you that is tasty, moist, easy to whip up and delicious, of course!

I am a lemon freak. I love all desserts made with lemon. Actually, add lemon to anything and odds are I’ll like it. Chocolate doesn’t stand a chance in my book. My husband completely disagrees, but I’ll forgive him for it!

These cupcakes are made with really simple ingredients that we all have on hand, but what makes them extra special is the frosting! I folded in whipped cream into it to make a light and fluffy ‘mousse’. Oh mama, are they good! I like regular frosting as much as the next person, but add in some cream? Puh-lease.

The only thing that could mess these up and/or make these not nearly as good as they could be would be in the baking process. DO NOT over bake these! If you think they are almost done, wait 20-30 seconds and test them again! And, I will tell you again–all ovens are different! In my oven, these took 21 minutes on the nose. My recipe says 20-25 minutes for a reason! I checked mine at 15 minutes, 18 minutes, 19 minutes 20 1/2 minutes and pulled them at 21 minutes. The toothpick method works for testing the doneness, but if you lightly touch the top of the cupcakes and it springs back, then you should be good to go. I’ll get off my soapbox now….

Perfectly baked cupcakes makes the world of difference in your cupcake-eating experience. Just sayin’!

So, get baking! Hope you love these as much as me!

Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Mousse Frosting
yield: 12
 Print This Recipe

Ingredients:
for the cupcakes-
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 whole eggs
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup milk

for the frosting-
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon lemon zest
3 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons milk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 12 muffin tins with paper liners and set aside.

In large bowl, whip butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Stir in eggs, vanilla and lemon zest. Scrape sides and whip again. Slowly stir in dry ingredients and then stream in milk. Scrape sides and mix until batter is just combined. Scoop by the spoonful into prepared muffin tins evenly. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees and bake 20-25 minutes or until just baked. (The last thing you want to do is over-bake these! Watch them like CRAZY!!) Remove from oven and cool completely.

For the frosting, whip cream until stiff peaks form. Remove from bowl and set aside. In the same bowl, whip butter, vanilla, lemon zest and powdered sugar for about a minute. You just want to break the butter up in the powdered sugar. With the mixer on, stream in the milk until the frosting starts coming together. Scrape the sides and whip it on high for about 2 minutes. Fold in the cream carefully. Once it’s all incorporated, you can frost your cupcakes. I used a piping bag with Wilton tip #1M, but doing it old school with a knife is totally fine too. Serve.

If there are leftovers, store in the fridge.