Cake 29: Lime Cupcakes with Lime Cream Cheese Frosting

Lime is pretty much the best flavor, in my opinion. It has close rivals, namely lemon but lime, oh how I love thee!

Pin It

When our eldest turned fifteen last month, one of his gifts was a coupon book that included things like game rentals, getting to choose dinner, a special dessert etc. He decided to combine a bunch of his coupons into one awesome extravaganza of a day and for his meal he wanted Homemade Tomato Soup (weird kid!) with Asiago Cheese Bread and Banana Tres Leches Cake. This is the FOURTH time I've made that cake since we tried it out in June. I get that it's delicious but in a house that is baking on average a cake a week, that's a little ridiculous. Plus it's making it hard for me to try new cakes. 

So, I decided to tempt my kiddos away from the beloved banana cake by making a second dessert option, and I stacked the cards in my favor by making a lime dessert. Yum.  These cupcakes are really spectacular and my family loved them... and then they polished off an insane amount of Banana tres leches. LOL. I guess my "trick" didn't work.

This recipe comes from Bon Appetit and I ran across it from Sara at My Madison Bistro

CUPCAKES

1 ¾ cups cake flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 stick (1/2 cup) cool unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces

1 ¼ cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs (room temperature)

2 ½ tablespoons key lime juice

1 tablespoon key lime zest

1 drop green food coloring paste

¾ cup buttermilk (room temperature)

Preheat oven to 350*F. Line a muffin tin with 12 paper liners. (I ended up making 18 cupcakes so plan accordingly)

Sift the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt three times, set aside.

Using a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on low until it’s softened a bit. Add the sugar and increase the speed to medium. Beat until fluffy, about four minutes. Add one egg at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the lime juice, zest, and food coloring and beat until mixed. (The mixture will look curdled.)

Add the flour in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour, scraping down the bowl as necessary. Mix on low until just combined. Fill each cupcake liner 2/3 full.

Note: This batter is freakishly light - like a meringue or a whipped cream. It isn't like anything I've made before. And it's yummy raw. 

Bake 20-25 minutes.  This was really disappointing, after the fluffy, whipped meringue consistency of the batter, I was expecting something a little less flat and common looking. They better taste good :-)

Cool completely and frost with cream cheese icing.

FROSTING

    1 8-ounce package cream cheese, room temperature (I use 1/3 less fat)

    1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

    1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature

    1 tablespoon finely grated lime peel

    juice of one lime (my addition)

    1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

    Beat all ingredients in medium bowl until smooth. Pipe onto cupcakes.

I'd show you more but they disappeared.

Linked up with Tales of a Trophy Wife