Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

A gal at my work had a baby boy a few weeks ago.  She is returning to work on Monday, so we are having a little impromptu/casual welcome back/welcome baby get together.  I was asked to make cupcakes for the occasion.  Of course I was thrilled.  My mind started whirling about what flavor I should make and how I could decorate them.  There are a couple people at work who don't like chocolate (is that possible?), so I wanted to do something non-chocolate.  Now, there are lots of recipes out there on Pinterest, but I am always drawn to the chocolate ones, so I had to refocus my usual gravitation towards anything chocolate.

I found this recipe here and decided that the flavors sounded really bright and fresh.

Blueberry Lemon Cupcakes with White Chocolate Icing

• (Adapted from Bon Appetit cake recipe)
• 
  
• Yield: 24 cupcakes

Ingredients

• For the cupcakes:
• 3 1/3 cups cake flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest, packed
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup plus 4 tablespoons buttermilk
• 2 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
For the frosting
• 11 ounces high quality white chocolate (such as Lindt or Baker’s), finely chopped
• 12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Instructions

For the cupcakes:
1. 1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Place 24 cupcake papers in two muffin tins.
2. 2. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda into a medium bowl.
3. 3. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until fluffy.
4. 4. Gradually add sugar, beating until blended, scraping down sides of bowl occasionally.
5. 5. Beat in lemon juice and zest, then eggs 1 at a time. Continue to beat until well blended.
6. 6. Beat in dry ingredients in batches alternating with buttermilk.
7. 7. Fold in berries.
8. 8. Fill each cupcake paper with 1/3 cup of batter. An ice cream scoop works well for this part of the process.
9. 9. Bake cupcakes for 20-25 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Carefully monitor after 20 minutes. Cool cupcakes in muffin tins for 5 minutes. Remove muffins from tins and cool completely on cooling rack.
For the icing:
10. 1. Melt white chocolate in double boiler over simmering water. Remove boiler top from water, stir until smooth, and cool until lukewarm.
11. 2. Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese and butter in large bowl until blended.
12. 3. Add lemon juice and cooled white chocolate and beat until well blended
To assemble:
13. When completely cooled, ice the cupcakes with a small cake spatula or piping bag. If you use a piping bag, you will be applying more icing to each cupcake and you should probably consider doubling the recipe.

When I saw that it was adapted from Bon Appetit, I figured I couldn't go wrong.  Boy, can I be wrong.  Not that there is anything wrong with the recipe, it is fantastic, I just apparently wasn't thinking while I was baking and.... well, we'll get to that later.

By the way, am I the only one with powdered sugar, flour, etc on their lap top?  I bake with it on the kitchen counter and I am a messy cook.  Just ask my wonderful husband who does all my dishes.

And that is only one side of my U-shaped kitchen with an island!!!!

But I digress.....

This recipe calls for cake flour.  I had never baked with it before.  Wow, does it make the batter smooth and creamy.  It was just beautiful.  Pretty sure this picture does not do it justice, but trust me, it was fabulous.

Now comes my mistake.  The recipe says that it makes 24 cupcakes, which was exactly what I needed, so I began scooping them into my pan.  (I love cupcake papers!)

I always use a large cookie scoop that I have because I feel like it makes the cupcakes more evenly sized, and most always when I use it, it scoops out pretty much exactly what the recipe says it will.  Well......I scooped and I scooped and I scooped and ended up with something like 24 + 12 + 6.  I kept having to pull out more and more cupcake pans.  Well, this is the point where my brain should have kicked in.  I sort of ignored the part of the recipe where it says to put about 1/3 cup batter into each cup.  Cupcakes are cupcakes are cupcakes - NOT!  These cupcakes are super tender and moist but do not rise a whole lot.  I am assuming it is because of the cake flour?  Anyway, they baked up "short".

You can see how they do not even reach the top of the cupcake wrapper.  At this point, I tried one to make sure that they were actually good and that I didn't do something completely wrong.  Let me just say, they are wonderful.  So moist and soft and tender.  I had definitely made the batter right, I had just scooped the wrong amount into the pan.  Now what do I do???  The people at my office were expecting something fabulous, which they do taste fabulous, but how could a serve a cupcake that is less than an inch tall?

Make another batch!!!!!  Now that's more like it.....

See the difference?  This is not a cupcake that you only want an inch of!  So glad that I decided to make another batch.

Now on to the frosting.  I made the icing just like the recipe says and I don't know if it was because it was a warm afternoon or what, but I could not get this frosting to hold it's shape.  It was just really loose.  Don't get me wrong, it tasted amazing with that hint of lemon in it, but I really needed something more stable.  I decided to add some powdered sugar.  I thought it was odd that there was not sugar in this icing, but whatever.  It did tighten it up some, but was still very loose.

By the way, you probably already know this, but if you don't have a double boiler (I don't), you an use a pan and a bowl like this.  It works just great.

So for the first, short, batch, I just frosted like this....

For work, like this....

I had seen this idea on Pinterest (is there anything that is NOT on pinterest?) and thought they were really cute and then stumbled upon a youtube video of how to do it.  Did mine turn out as cute as hers?  No, but I was not using crusting buttercream like she did.  My frosting was delicious! :)

I started by making these little faces with a combo of fondant & gum paste so that they would be fairly still.  I am just beginning to work with fondant and gum paste and I have to say it is really fun.  In case you are wondering, you use a food marker like the ones here to draw the faces on, so actually these little faces are edible too.  Here is the youtube video is you want to watch it and see a pro do it. (and what they are really supposed to look like.