I haven’t been feeling well this past week.  Not sure why, maybe allergies or a summer cold that never wants to quite develop into something substantial and worthy of feeling ill.  Whatever it is, it is really bugging me and getting on my nerves. All I want to do is sleep. 

I had a relatively low key weekend of sleeping, eating, watching movies at home and at the movie theater and now baking.  

I went to see One Day and I have to say, I didn’t love it, I am not sure I even liked it to be honest.  It was quite long, drawn out and a little annoying.  Maybe I am just getting cold-hearted in my old age.

Anyway, baking is something I do when I dont feel very well and Monday, a lovely free day from work called for happy food and happy food to me are cupcakes!  I love anything with a citrus tang to it so I added a lot of citrus to what I decided to bake.

Citrus Vanilla Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting 

Cupcakes

1 stick of butter
1 cup of sugar
1 eggs
1 ¾ cups of flour
1 ½  tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
¾ cup of milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
Juice of ½ lemon

Frosting

8 oz cream cheese 
2 cup confectioner’s sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
Rind and juice of ½ lemon

Preheat oven to 350º.  

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.  Slowly Mix in the egg.  Then, stir in all of the dry ingredients until combined.

Slowly pour in the milk and the vanilla extract while beating constantly. Line a 12 cup cake muffin tin with cupcake paper and fill each space with batter.  

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the cupcakes are lightly golden on top and a toothpick inserted in the center of one comes out clean.  Remove the cupcakes from the tins to cool.  Let the cupcakes cool completely before frosting.

While the cupcakes cool, make the frosting.  

Cream together the sugar, the cream cheese and add the vanilla extract.   more sugar if needed to bring frosting to the appropriate consistency.  

I don’t have frosting tools anymore as my old ones (at least 20 years old) became too rusty and old.  They are always something that are on my “to do list” to buy but I forget until I want to make frosting again.

Here is a very easy solution to making your own frosting bag.  Use a small sandwich bag – I used just a standard ziplock bag.  Put bag over a cup and fill with frosting, about half full. 

Seal and snip the corner of the bag to whatever size you want.  My mum taught me how to do this decades ago and it never fails. 

Frost the cupcakes and decorate with additional lemon rind. 

One for me and the rest for work.  Maybe two for me.  One was delicious, two could be fantastic right?

Tracey-Cheers