Strawberry cupcakes with Lemon Frosting

The best thing about the fall season to me is definitely the fashions and smell of apples and pumpkins. Yet the worst thing is the scarcity of seasonal fruits like sweet strawberries. That is why I have decided to make my goodbye summer Strawberry- Lemon cupcakes. These are two fruits that I believe represent the warmer months (there are many more but just go with the flow…lol). This recipe makes around 29 cupcakes if the paper cups are filled correctly. So without further delay here is my recipe, Enjoy!

Strawberry Cupcakes 
Ingredients:
2 sticks of unsalted butter
2 cups of granulated sugar
4 large eggs
3 cups of all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cups of milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 teaspoons of strawberry extract
3 cups fresh diced strawberries

2 drops of red food coloring to give batter the “typical” strawberry color

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line cupcake pans with liners.

2. Cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy for 3-5 minutes
3. Add the eggs one at a time beating well after each addition

3. In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and salt

4. Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture alternately with the milk.
5. Mix for 3 minutes, then fold extracts, red food color and strawberries in the batter
6. Fill the cupcake liners three-quarters full
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.
8. Cool cupcakes in the pan.

Lemon Buttercream

Ingredients:

1 cup softened  butter

 or ½ cup of butter and ½ cup of high ratio shortening( use all vegetable shortening)

Zest of 2 lemons

Juice of 2 lemons

4 cups confectioners' sugar

2 lemon, juice and zest of

1 ½ tablespoons of lemon extract

2 ½ tablespoons of heavy whipping cream

Directions:

1. Combine butter, shortening and sugar, beat until well combined

2. Add lemon zest, juice and sugar until well combined

3. Add heavy whipping cream until desired consistency is reached

Banana Cupcakes with Nutella frosting

Have you ever had an abundance of overly ripe bananas and did not have a single clue as to what to do with them…..Make banana cupcakes! Today I had a few bananas that were too brown for me too eat but I felt like a waster just throwing them out, so I opened my recipe book and decided to make banana cupcakes with Nutella frosting. Nutella frosting to me is the best accompaniment that I could think of for banana cupcakes. However if you like something different by all means try it. Let’s begin the ingredient and directions are below:

Ingredients for cupcakes:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 ½ cups of sugar

2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

½  teaspoon salt

1 cup of unsalted butter, melted

3 cups mashed bananas

4 large eggs

½  teaspoon pure vanilla extract

½ banana extract

 

Directions:

1.      Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.      Line a standard 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners (this recipe makes 36 cupcakes)

3.      In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt

4.      Make a well in center of flour mixture

5.       In well, mix together butter, mashed bananas, eggs, and extract.

6.      Stir to incorporate flour mixture (do not over mix).

7.      Dividing evenly fill muffin cups with batter

8.      Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of a cupcake comes out clean  which is about  25 to 30 minutes

9.      Let cupcakes cool, let’s start on the frosting

Nutella frosting:

2& 1/4 cups of unsalted room temperature butter

6 &1/2 cups of confectioners' sugar

1 cup of milk

2 & 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 & 1/4 cups of room temperature Nutella

Now you can frost the cupcakes using whatever method you may like however, I normally use a disposable frosting bag and a #1m cake decorating tip. Check out the picture!!!!