If life gives you lemons...make lemon cupcakes!

Summer is here! well, not really but the sun shines everyday and it is time for some summery and refreshing recipes.

When the weather is sunny and summery I always crave citrus based recipes, I love lemons and I have several lemon flavor cupcakes in my menu and of course in my upcoming book.

In case you haven't heard: I got a book deal!!! yay! I'm so excited I can barely contain myself! 

The book is being published by Schiffer Publishing and it's hitting the stands on Fall/ Winter of this year, I don't have an exact release date yet but I soon as I know I'll let you all know.

Back to the lemons! My biggest challenge when I started incorporating citrus (lemons, limes, oranges, etc.) into my baking was trying to find a balance of flavor and texture, I started by twisting my base Vanilla Cake recipe and switching all the liquid of my recipe for citrus juice; through trial and error I discovered than by doing so the cake tended to shrink (a lot!), the texture was heavy and dense and the cake was overly sour.

The best balance I found was substituting only half of the liquid the recipe needs for citrus juice and adding some of the zest, this way not only the recipe maintains its original light and fluffy consistency but it is citrusy enough without being too overpowering.

One of my favorite summer Cupcake flavors is our Lemon Blueberry cupcakes, these cuties incorporate seasonal blueberries.

Something you must keep in mind when adding fresh whole fruit into a cake is to FOLD them into to batter by hand AFTER the batter is completely mixed in your stand mixer.  If you mix the fruit with the rest of the batter during the mixing process the fruit will release its juice and the batter will have extra liquid, which might cause the cake or cupcakes to sink in the middle and to bake with a gooey consistency.

Some amazing citrus based recipes I'm including in my book: Margarita, Mojito, Limoncello, Cranberry Orange, Mimosa cupcakes, to name a few. 

Hopefully you'll give it a try, happy baking!

Much love,

Ady