As requested...Lemon Cupcakes w/Raspberry Buttercream

Is a recipe without glorious pictures to go with it still a good recipe? Let's hope so, cause here comes one! (Well, there is one picture...I don't think that really counts, though...sigh)

Lemon Cream Cupcakes, adapted from Allrecipes.com

1 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
1 teaspoon lemon extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups sour cream

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add lemon peel and lemon extract; mix well. Combine dry ingredients; add to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream (batter will be thick). Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups with 1/4 cup of batter. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Remove from muffin pan to cool on a rack. When cooled, use a paring knife or offset spatula to make a cross in the top of the cupcakes to allow them to be filled with lemon curd.

Ina Garten's Lemon Curd

(http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/lemon-curd-recipe/index.html)

3 lemons
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 pound unsalted butter, room temperature
4 extra-large eggs
1/2 cup lemon juice (3 to 4 lemons)
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

Using a carrot peeler, remove the zest of 3 lemons, being careful to avoid the white pith. Put the zest in a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Add the sugar and pulse until the zest is very finely minced into the sugar.*
Cream the butter and beat in the sugar and lemon mixture. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and then add the lemon juice and salt. Mix until combined.
Pour the mixture into a 2 quart saucepan and cook over low heat until thickened (about 10 minutes)**, stirring constantly. The lemon curd will thicken at about 170 degrees F, or just below simmer. Remove from the heat and cool or refrigerate.

*I don't have a food processer, so I used a Microplane to zest my lemons, then just smashed the sugar and zest all to hell with a wooden spoon. The taste was divine, so I imagine this will work for you, too.

**This took me about 15 minutes to achieve the consistency I wanted, but I was a fraidy-cat and didn't want to scald my curd. Nor do I own a candy themometer to find out what the actual temperature of the stuff I'm cooking is at. Guess I need to compile one of those kitchen wish list things and start buying stuff, huh?

Raspberry Buttercream

This one is a little hard to provide a recipe for, but I'll give it a shot. Frosting has always been (cause my mama taught me so) more of a start-here-but-realize-you-may-have-to-add-a-bit-more-of-this-and-then-that-to-get-it-right kind of thing. Mama is not usually wrong about these things, and this recipe is no exception. Start here and hold on to your apron strings!!

1 stick of butter, room temperature

1/2 cup Criso

1lb powdered (10x) sugar, sifted

1 tsp raspberry extract

1/4 cup frozen raspberries with juice (thawed)

Sidenote: fresh berries sure are yummy, but I wanted the juice, so I used frozen. Also, it turns the buttercream a delicious shade of pink...let you conscience be your guide!

Cream the butter and Crisco together like a mad man - light and fluffy, people, light and fluffy. Add the extract and your berries and whip it...whip it good!

Either slowly add your sugar in while it beats or dump it all in at once and let it go. To me, it matters not, let it beat for a good 7 minutes or so and you will end up with a delightfully creamy, berryriffic frosting!!

At this point, if it's too stiff for your liking, add more berry juice, or extract or both. I added more of both for flavor, then balanced out with more sugar. I didn't want a "Hint of Raspberry" buttercream, so I took it up a notch - I was not disappointed and I hope you won't be either.

So you have your cooled cupcakes, your cooled lemon curd (if you haven't managed to eat it all already) and your fabulous buttercream. I found that the curd in a plain piping bag worked great for filling the cakes. Use your preferred method, and if it turns out to be the easiest thing you've ever done, drop me a note, I'll listen! Using your bag full of curd, insert the tip about a 1/2 inch into the crosshatch you cut on the cupcake and squeeze gently. The cupcake will puff up a bit and that should do it. Too much filling tastes mahvalous, dahling but makes an awful, drippy, sticky mess. Take it easy. Fill 'em all up and slap some of that lovely pink-ness of a buttercream on top and consume in droves.

(Piping lovely mounds of frosting and a delicate sprinkling of disco dust, edible glitter or other such embellishment is also an option. It just keeps them away from your mouth longer. Your choice, lovelies)

They are delicious! Make them!! If you do, and happen to take step-by-step pictures that you then forward to me to post in this blog, I'll be your best friend forever and ever so help me, Betty Crocker.

**UPDATE** I made these again and got a picture of the finished product!! Yay me!! They got rave reviews AGAIN, so I'm guessing this is a safe bet for my go-to cupcake :)