Lemon-Honey Cupcakes

First off, a technical note:
I'll be changing the layout of my recipes from now on. To make things easier on those that wish to try out the recipe, I won't be including the step-by-step pictures in the middle of the recipe. Instead, for those of you who find them helpful, I'll have them at the end of the recipe. That way it is easy to copy-paste/print the recipe, but you still get the picture references. :)

Now, for dinner, I made the delicious Beef and Nectarine Stir-fry, but wanted something new for dessert! I settled on Lemon-Honey cupcakes (so there are smaller, easily defined serving sizes) from the Women's Day website: you can find the original recipe here.

                                                            ~Lemon-Honey Cupcakes~

Ingredients:
~Cupcake~
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 tbsp grated lemon zest
4 tbsp lemon juice
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup honey
1/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
~Frosting~
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 tbsp grated lemon zest
4 cups confectioner's sugar
7-8 tsp lemon juice
Few drops of yellow food coloring

(Makes ~24 cupcakes)



Step 1:  Preheat oven to 350F. Line muffin pan with paper cups.
Step 2: Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl to blend.
Step 3: Whisk sour cream, milk, lemon zest, and lemon juice in a small bowl until well mixed. 
Step 4:  Beat butter, honey, and sugar in large bowl with an electric mixer for 2 minutes [or in my case, my handy-dandy stainless steel whisk] until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until blended. 
Step 5: With mixer on low speed [or whisking by hand], add and beat in half the flour mixture to the butter-honey-sugar mix, then the whole sour cream mixture. Beat in remaining flour mixture until just combined. 
Step 6: Spoon about 1/4 cup batter into each muffin cup [I did a little less than 2 scoops with my PC medium scoop]. Bake 18 to 20 minutes until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove cupcakes from pan to wire rack to cool completely. 


Frosting:  ***
Step 1:  Beat butter, honey, and lemon zest in large bowl with an electric mixer [or by hand!] until creamed, about 2 minutes.
Step 2: Beat in confectioners’ sugar until blended.
Step 3: Beat in lemon juice and a few drops food color until mixture is fluffy and pale yellow. 
Step 4: Spoon into a large ziptop freezer bag, snip off one corner and pipe onto cupcakes, or just spread frosting onto cupcakes.


***I personally found the frosting recipe led to a rather liquidy, unfrosting-like frosting. When you try to pipe it onto the cupcakes, it just runs down the side and makes a mess. =/ Letting the frosting mixture sit for 10-20 minutes helps a little, but not much. I recommend spreading a thin layer onto the cupcakes. If you desire more frosting, you can spread a second layer once the first layer is set.


Total cooking time: 1 hour 15 minutes
(including oven-baking and cooling time)


Overall, this recipe tastes very good. I just need to find a way to make the frosting more solid so I can pipe it on. There really is too much made with the frosting recipe to just be for spreading (I tossed about half of it down the drain....so sad...).

Ingredients

Step 3

Step 5 & 6

Frosting