Let The Sun Shine!

     Keeping in the theme of my Spring Fling post from last week, this week is still kinda all about yellow. Well, maybe its more about sunshine this time. Sunshine cupcakes that is. A couple weeks ago my dear friend, and artist Amber took me to Muddy's Bake Shop in Memphis. All I can say is YUM!!! Their cupcakes are amazing. There are a lot of cute cupcake places popping up here and there but this place ROCKS. The cupcakes are moist and the icing is not overwhelming the cake. I'm sure you've had or seen a cupcake where the icing is piled so high and is just so sugary that you can't even eat it all. Gag. I can't handle all of that. Muddy's cupcakes had the perfect ratio of cupcake to icing. ;)

     Well, as much as I would love to head to Memphis once a week for some cupcakes, I just can't. So I decided to try to re-create (as much as possible) the amazing "Sunshine" cupcake I had at Muddy's. I think they turned out purty darn close...

First you will need:

*plus eggs! Oh me. Can't forget the eggs. ;)

Sunshine Cupcakes

1 box Yellow cake mix

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice

1/3 cup olive oil

3 eggs

Bake at 350* for about 19 minutes

*basically i followed the recipe on the back of the cake mix but made half of the water, lemon juice and used olive oil instead of vegetable oil. Does that make sense? :)

Squeeze your lemon juice. It took 2 lemons to get the 1/2 cup i needed for the cake.

Zest one lemon to use later as a garnish...

Ahh, there are the eggs! ;)  Mix up all the ingredients...

Load up your cupcake liners. I like to use an ice cream scoop so my cupcakes are all the same size.

 They just look prettier later if you do it that way. :)

Bake @ 350*  The cake mix said 19-23 minutes. 

I like to use the least amount that way they won't dry out.

And while they bake...

Mix:

 2 pk cream cheese

1/4 cups freshly squeezed lemon juice

6 cups powdered sugar

Splash of vanilla

For your icing...

The icing was all trial and error here but I liked how it turned out. It will not be heavy and you will not be able to make a swirly top like with a regular buttercream icing, but it was light, yummy, and perfect for these cupcakes.

Don't forget to take em out!!! (Yes this happens to me ALL the time. :P )

Load up a ziplock bag with your icing and cut the corner off. 

Then you can make a nice dollop of icing on the top!

...and don't forget your zest for your garnish!

 YUM!!!

The Loo-la-bees had to try, of course!

Hope you have a Sun-shiny day! :)

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