Well, I couldn’t make a layer cake this weekend, and especially I couldn’t reach far enough to whip up a buttercream with three sticks of butter. There is nothing more tedious than softening an entire pound of butter for cake and frosting when you have no real reason to do so.
As much as I considered making just a smaller version of the cake, my parents came to visit this weekend, and we walked around the city, shopped, and ate. When I had some downtime, I could whip up a batch of cupcakes more quickly and easily. Furthermore, after all the delicious food and dessert I consumed this weekend, I certainly did not need another cake at home.
To celebrate the Fourth of July, I made some festive mini cakes using Reynolds star-shaped cupcake molds I had lying around the house. I divided the batter into two bowls and added a generous amount of blue food coloring to one of them. This resulted in blue and white cupcakes. I topped some of the cakes with strawberry raspberry jam and sprinkled red decorating sugar on the rest.
It was straightforward to make and tasted great. The lemon flavor turned out to be so bright from both lemon zest and lemon extract. The lemon extract was initially bought for the controversial “eggy” lemon custard cups, but I have enjoyed it a lot, and I suspect it cuts the richness of the buttercream that goes with this cake. In addition, I found that this cake honestly tasted and smelled of buttermilk.
Overall, I was pleased with my cupcakes. As a result, they weren’t as moist and tender as I would have liked. The next time I have an occasion and the desire to make a layer of cake, I will try this recipe (say, my upcoming birthday in July). I can’t wait to try this light lemon cake layered with vanilla buttercream, raspberry jam, and coconut!
Very festive!
I like these Reynolds molds. They also come in heart shapes.
I carefully spread the white batter over the blue batter for some of them…
For others, I just tossed the white batter in and waited for the chips to fall.
I tried swirling the batter together on a few, but I didn’t achieve the desired result.
I prefer the “plopped” cupcakes to the neater “spread” ones. The stars with blue tips are pretty cool looking.