Plus: How To Candy Lemon Slices!
Our amazing children's program specialist/librarian, who I affectionately refer to as Miss Margaret when I try to showcase her awesomeness in occasional blog posts, is celebrating a birthday this week! The esteem in which I hold Miss M knows no limits, and as I am somewhat good at cake creation, I wanted to shower her with baked good appreciation in honor of her celebrating another year circling the globe.
As I was already aware of Miss M's affection for lemon cupcakes, I decided to attempt to craft the best lemon cupcakes that I had ever created. It being a 
So, with that heralding fanfare behind us, come along with me on a lemony-creation journey!
The cake part of the the cupcake creation began with a box of lemon cake mix. I know, I know, it's much more respectable to make a cake from scratch, and I quite often do, but in all honesty, I am a little pressed for time these days. There are little tricks that I use to enhance convenience foods on occasions, like adding extra eggs to a cake mix, using buttermilk instead of water, and so on.
Of course, it being me, there are mistakes that are made that I have to correct too. Some random hooligan ran through the kitchen screeching all manner of insult and injury just after I had measured out the buttermilk for the cake. Once I had put out the petulant prepubescent emotional fire, I returned to make cake mix doctoring, and sure enough, in the distracted parent tradition, added the an extra half a cup of buttermilk to my lemon cake mix instead of the oil. Grrr...
Emergency fix it mode was activated, and along with the appropriate amount of oil, I also added an extra half a cup of flour, the zest of one lemon, and about half a lemon's worth of fresh squeezed juice. So many cakes have been whipped up in my trusty Kitchen Aid mixer that I was reasonably confident about the texture of my batter.
You may notice that there are no cupcake wrappers in my trusty old pans. I would like to think that I am doing my part to limit waste by not using them, but honestly, I usually just don't have any, and no one misses the wrappers anyway. I just use my coconut oil cooking spray and liberally coat the tins. There have never been any problems removing the cakes from the pans, thank you extra egg in the mix!
Fifteen minutes later and a marginal bit of cooling, I removed the cupcakes from the pan and sliced one in half. As punishment for causing me cupcake composition grief, I made the children taste test the adulterated recipe. I am a terrible mom, I know. They tried to swarm the rest of the batch, so I knew that I had a winner on my hands taste and texture wise. Phew.
As it was Miss M's birthday celebration, I wanted the cakes to have a little pizazz in the looks department. So I decided to candy some lemon slices to use for garnish. Candying citrus is pretty easy, and really doesn't take a lot of time (My recipe for doing so is at the bottom of this post)
After turning up the heat on the sugar water, I took a spoon and drizzled the water over the sides of the pot to get the pesky little outlier sugar crystals to join their dissolving brethren. Once the sugar completely dissolved and the mixture was simmering, I plunked the lemon slices into the water and let them do their simmer-thing for fifteen minutes, or until translucent.
Removing the slices is pieces of cake, and I laid them on a piece of parchment paper and sprinkled them with a bit of granulated sugar. They need to be cooled completely before utilization, and can be stored in the fridge for quite a while. I made my garnish the day before. Kind of like I always bake my cakes the day before I frost and serve them. Second day cake, properly stored, always tastes better!
Don't forget to save the syrup that results from candying your lemons, it is beyond scrumptious and can be utilized in multiple ways!
Speaking of which, the following morning I got up and began crafting the frosting for my cupcakes. I had decided I wanted lemon infused cream cheese frosting. So, into my bowl went softened cream cheese, a bit of butter, a bit of shortening, some heavy cream, the zest of a bit of lemon, some fresh squeezed lemon juice, and vanilla extract. While I was chucking all of my frosting ingredients into the bowl, my eyes lit upon the syrup left over from candying the lemons. It had the most delicious lemon essence, so I plunked a tablespoon of the syrup into my mixing bowl too. I whipped the concoction into a creamy, lemon scented cloud and had my daughter taste test it for me. The insolent creature tried to steal the mixing bowl and run away with my cake topping!
Frosting reacquired, I paused to take out the filling that I had made the previous evening for my cupcakes. An easier filling I have yet to construct, for my lemon mousse filling is just a box of instant lemon pudding, whipping cream, milk, lemon zest, and fresh squeezed lemon juice.
It must be said that I have proper pastry filling and frosting bags lying around my house. It must also be said that I am often pressed for time and tend to take shortcuts that don't require me to do things like utter curse words whilst scrubbing out frosting bags. I hate that job! So, I tend to use quart plastic zipper bags with the ends cut off for filling and frosting baked goods. Okay, I will put my frosting tips on them too, but that's cause occasionally I like things to look pretty, so it's worth the extra dish washing grief for yours truly.
I have a big circle frosting tip that I use to pipe filling into cupcakes, and that's exactly what I did Tuesday morning, all while shaking my flintlocks to some classic Daft Punk, because the song "One More Time" talks about celebrating, and that's what we were going to do at work! Celebrate Miss M!
Once my cupcakes where filled, I took another bag and filled it with the cream cheese frosting. Starting from the outside of each cupcake I swirled lemon fluff spirals of almost adolescent thieved frosting. Don't think my daughter wasn't lurking either, I had a total parenting nutrition win Tuesday morning, for the second I was done frosting the cupcakes, my girl took the bowl of remaining frosting and proceeded to devour every last scrap. Yay vitamin C!
For the piece de resistance I placed halves of candied lemon atop each cupcake like a citrus crown of glory!
Later, after we all ingested the cupcakes, I paused a minute and reflected upon my actions a bit. Miss Margaret absolutely adored her birthday cupcakes, and guys, I have to say, they were among the finest that I have ever constructed. Moist cake, creamy filling, and a not too sweet, fluffy frosting, all interspersed with a lemon notes my cupcakes were. Miss M is trying to convince me to open a drive through coffee and cupcakery, and if I had a clone to do all of my other work, I might just consider it, for there is nothing like seeing the joy one's created comestibles places upon the faces of others. All of the labor was totally worth it!
Candied Lemon Slices
6 ounces of granulated sugar
8 ounces water
1 lemon, thinly sliced into roundsTo begin this lemon garnish journey, thinly slice your yellow citrus fruit into rounds. Try to avoid butchering yourself.
Place sugar and water into a small sauce pot and bring to a simmer, make sure that all of the sugar dissolves and place the lemon slices into the syrup.
Simmer gently for fifteen minutes or until translucent.
Cool candied lemon slices on a silicon mat or parchment paper. They can be stored in the fridge until ready to use as you see fit. Even as projectiles hurled in the direction of frosting stealing young people. Please don't judge me.
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