1st Annual FoodBuzz Blogger Festival

The 1st Annual FoodBuzz Blogger Festival will be held November 6-8, 2009 in San Francisco. The weekend will be filled with food & fun...and San Francisco has some great cupcake bakeries that will be on hand to provide us wth delicious treats!

Make plans to be there!

Recipe of the Week - Lemon Cupcakes

Week 7

Lemon cupcakes are one of my favorites and the more intense the lemon flavor the better. I know I have already posted a lemon cupcake recipe, but I discovered a new recipe and we all know you can't have too many lemon cupcake recipes...this one will not dissapoint!

Lemon Cupcakes

2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour

1 cup sugar (or Splenda Blend for baking)

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter - room temperature

3 large eggs

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup whole milk

1/2 cup lemon juice

1 tsp. lemon zest

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare muffin tins with cupcake liners.

Combine flour, sugar (or Splenda), baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Cut butter into flour mixture with a fork until crumbly.

Stir together eggs, milk, lemon juice & lemon zest in a small mixing bowl. Add 1/3 of the egg mixture to the flour mixture. Beat for 30 seconds at low speed with an electric mixer. Repeat this procedure 2 more times. Spoon batter into prepared cupcake liners.

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until done.

Caring for your Cupcakes

Carpe Cupcakes! Seize the Cupcakes!

In a perfect world, cupcakes should be consumed within 24 hours of coming out of the oven. The quality of a cupcake decreases as each hour passes and most cupcakes will be dry and lifeless by the second or third day. Store cupcakes at room temperature in an airtight container and serve them as soon as possible.

Refrigerating a cupcake will extend its life somewhat, but allow it to come to room temperature before eating it. The ideal room temperature is between 68 and 72 degrees. I have tried to microwave a cupcake to speed up this process, but beware. This is tricky business, especially if icing is involved. And remember that icings may be changed by refrigeration – they may not look or taste the same coming out as they did going in.

A note about freezing cupcakes…if you must freeze them, use them within a week. Wrap them in double or triple layers of plastic wrap and place them in an airtight container or freezer bag. Defrost them for 6-8 hours before applying frosting.