Have you seen this video?  I’m obsessed with it.  This girl has got it figured out.  Dinner time?  How about cupcakes!  Breakfast?  I know, cupcakes!  Every time she says it she is clearly thinking very hard about what the correct thing to eat is.  And every time she comes to the same conclusion: cupcakes.  Duh, mom.

I took a page from Julia’s book and made cupcakes for no reason other than that I felt like it.  And a little bit because I got a new frosting tip and wanted to see if it magically transformed my creations into something beautiful.  Which in my opinion it totally did.  Turns out they were good enough to be made again 3 days later and entered into my company’s charity bake-off where they won $100, but that’s another story.  This chocolate cake recipe is one that seems to be pretty prevalent around the internet, so I decided to give it a try, although I’m unsure of its original origin.  It’s definitely delicious – super moist and chocolatey, and it leaves you with slightly sticky, cakey fingers after each bite – but I think I would only use it for certain recipes.  It reminds me a lot of chocolate cakes from childhood birthday parties because of it’s simple flavor and almost gooey (but in a good, cakey way) texture, so it’s perfect with tiny, simply frosted cupcakes, but I wouldn’t use it for a more elegant recipe.  With the mint frosting these were almost refreshing in their mintiness, and, especially in their mini form, the perfect minty-chocolate bite of dessert.

Chocolate-Mint Cupcakes

Makes 12 regular cupcakes; 48 mini cupcakes.

For cupcakes:

• 1 c. sugar
• 7/8 c. flour (7/8 c. = 3/4 c. + 2 TBS)
• 3/8 c. cocoa (3/8 c. = 6 TBS)
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 1/2 c. milk
• 1/4 c. vegetable oil
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp peppermint extract
• 1/2 c. boiling water

For frosting

• 1 1/2 sticks softened, salted butter
• 3 c. powdered sugar
• 1-2 TBS heavy cream
• 1/2 tsp peppermint extract
• 1 drop green food coloring

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and line muffin tin with muffin liners.  In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, until well combined.  Add egg, milk, vegetable oil, and extracts, and whisk for about 2 minutes, until batter has no lumps.  Add 1/2 c. boiling water and incorporate.  Spoon batter into prepared muffin tin – 1 full TBS of batter each for mini cupckaes, 1/2 c. batter for regular cupcakes (which should be about 3/4 full).  Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean – 18-20 minutes for regular cupcakes, and 10-12 minutes for mini cupcakes.  Allow to cool completely before frosting.
2. In a medium bowl, beat the softened butter until smooth and creamy.  Add the powdered sugar a half cup at a time, beating to creamy stage between each addition.  If the buttercream gets too stiff to beat, add a splash of heavy cream and incorporate.  Once all the powdered sugar is added and the buttercream holds stiff peaks, add the peppermint extract and food coloring, and beat until fully combined.  Adjust for flavor and consistency – add more powdered sugar for a stiffer, sweeter frosting, and a splash of heavy cream for a thinner, richer frosting.  Store frosting and frosted cupcakes in fridge in airtight container.

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Megan is my rooms.  In fact, this is the fourth year in a row that she has been my rooms.  That’s a pretty solid relationship right there.  Two years ago after a particularly thirsty night out I came home and asked her, quite plaintively I believe, if we could be roommates forever, and ever, for life.  I was completely serious.  I still am completely serious.  She would have to let a seriously large amount of laundry mixed with dirty dishes accumulate in the living room for me to change my mind.

There are a lot of reasons Megan is a good roommate.  She’s very generous with her car, which is a. the only vehicle I’ve ever enjoyed driving since the demise of my poor, poor pimpmobile, b. the only vehicle I’ve ever driven, period, where I didn’t have to adjust the seat when I got in because we both drive inappropriately close to the wheel, and c. full of jammin’  music which I refer to in my head as Megan tunes.  Megan tunes include a significant portion of the Glee soundtrack, usually followed by JJJJ J R, with some random a capella that makes me cry suddenly and unexpectedly while driving home from work thrown in there.  Annnnd … that’s all the reasons I have.

Just kidding.  I love Megan to death.  I love when she dances around without pants.  I love that she gives the best drunk hugs known to man.  I love that we have the same conversation every night as we sit around the kitchen table and then laugh (or cry, depending on how many hours past midnight it is) about how pathetic we are.  I do not really love the flotsam she tends to eject but I will deal with it.  I love that she suffers from baby-itis as badly as I do.  I love that she does things like eat entire boxes of nilla wafers dipped in frosting and four slices of cheesy bread at midnight.  I love that she’s just the right amount of normal mixed with just the right amount of weird.  Megan is incredibly smart, caring, funny, and mature, and I really mean every single one of those words.  She’s a great person to have around.

I had sort of a hard time deciding what kind of cupcakes to make for Megan.  Mostly it was hard because she obviously knows whatever I’m cooking and sometimes she watches over my shoulder when I’m foodgawking and says things like “I want that.  And that.  Oh and those pumpkin ones.”  And since I want them all too it’s hard to focus.  My initial inclination was, like my dad said, to make something messy on the outside but delicious and sweet on the inside.  I almost went for some sort of chocolate filled peanut butter candy covered concoction, but then I asked her if she wanted something vanilla-ish or chocolate-ish and she said “light, so I can eat five at a time.  But it’s OK if you work a little chocolate in there somewhere.”  So I regrouped.  I decided to go for these fondue cupcakes, because fondue is decidedly messy but in a fun, communal way.  Appropriate.  Also they have berries on top, and Megan eats a lot of berries.  And berries are healthy so you can eat 5 of these at a time.  Tah dah!  The perfect Megan cupcake.   These came out very well.  I used Martha Stewart’s buttermilk cake recipe and it was just what I wanted – great flavor, great texture, and very moist.  It will definitely be my go-to yellow cake recipe.  The chocolate topping was decadent, but when combined with the light cake and the cold fruit it was just right … and all together they really did remind me of chocolate fondue!

So, three down, one to go.  And after October 23rd, no more cupcakes until at least Christmas.  Time.  Ish.

Fondue Cupcakes

Cake recipe adapted from Martha Stewart.  Frosting recipe from Shelly Kaldunski’s Cupcakes.  Makes 18.

• 1.5 c. cake flour
• 3/4 c. AP flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 stick salted butter, room temperature
• 1 c. + 2 TBS sugar
• 2 whole eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 c. buttermilk

• 8 oz. semi-sweet chocolate
• 2/3 c. sweetened condensed milk
• 2 TBS butter
• fresh strawberries and raspberries for topping

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.  Line muffin pan with cupcake liners.  In a medium bowl, sift together flowers, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add whole eggs one at a time, beating vigorously in between additions.  Add egg yolks and vanilla and beat to combine.
3. Add flour mixture and buttermilk to wet ingredients in alternating additions: add 1/3 of the flour, mix, 1/2 of the buttermilk, mix, 1/3 of the flour, mix, the remaining buttermilk, mix, the remaining flour, mix.  Only mix very gently between additions, just to fold the ingredients into the batter evenly.
4. Spoon the batter into cupcake liners, filling about 3/4 of the way.  Bake for 17-19 minutes – when done, they should spring back lightly when you push down on them and a toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean, but the edges should not have begun to brown.  Let cool.
5. In a small saucepan over low heat, melt together chocolate, condensed milk, and butter, stirring regularly.  When it has formed a smooth, even mixture, spoon on top of cooled cupcakes (leaving the chocolate over low heat so it doesn’t lose it’s texture).  Spread to form a smooth cap, then top with fresh fruit.  Be careful not to let the chocolate get to warm, as it will begin to burn and the texture will change to become grainy.

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Cupcake Lovin’, Part One

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Four of my best girlfriends have their birthdays in between mid-September and the end of October.  For each of them, I am making cupcakes, because that is the best way that I can think of to show my love. And also because who doesn’t love things that are small, pink, delicate, and, most importantly, edible?  I’m of the opinion that everyone should have something both cute and slightly indulgent on their birthday.  Because each of my friends is lovely and wonderful and unique, each of them clearly had to have their own highly-personalized batch of cupcakes.  Here’s what I made, for whom, and why.

Becky. Shirley Temple Cupcakes. Becky and I have been friends for an extremely long time.  In fact, I think she might be the oldest friend I have whom I’m still in touch with, besides like, my baby brother.  And my mom.  You know.  We used to jump rope together and write stupid ridiculously girly letters to boys while at the beach.  We used to have a fake joint AIM account we used to harass our crushes.  I went to her bat mitzvah.  She threw me an incredible surprise birthday party in 8th grade.  I have some really epic pictures of us in our awkward stages.  We ended up at the same high school, where we grew apart a little, but would still go on long, long walks once every few weeks to catch up and then we would get cold and it would be gray and we would continue talking in long uninterrupted streams in Starbucks.  We both got accepted at Duke, and by complete chance ended up two doors apart from each other in our freshman year.  We got close again, made the same friends, dressed in matching outfits to go to parties, had a few drunken adventures.  We started an excellent tradition of girl talk with Megan and Phoebe.  And now we’re seniors, we live a few buildings apart, and we’ve officially been friends for 11 years.  Wow.

It’s because of all this… past, that I decided to make shirley temple cupcakes for Becky.  Because we were already close when we were young enough to get excited about ordering shirley temples out at dinner.  And I seem to have a very vague memory of some chicken fingers and shirley temples and something that felt unbearably funny late at night during a jump rope trip.  And they are just innocent and sweet and their appeal is enduring, and it seemed appropriate.  The cupcakes have a grenadine based cake batter topped with a lemon-lime cream cheese frosting.  They came out well – a lovely color, fluffy texture that reminded me of the box mix texture that can be hard to achieve from scratch, very sweet, and a simple flavor.

Shirley Temple Cupcakes

Recipe from The Cupcake Project. Makes 15.

• 1/2 c. lemon-lime soda
• 1/2 c. grenadine
• 1 tsp vinegar (cider, white wine, or white will all work)
• 3/4 c. sugar
• 1/3 c. canola oil
• 1 1/3 c. flour
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 oz. neufchatel cheese, room temperature
• 3 tsp lemon juice
• 2 tsp lime juice
• 3 c. powdered sugar
• 15 maraschino cherries with stems

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.  Line muffin pan with cupcake liners.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together soda, grenadine, and vinegar.  Let stand for a few minutes, then add sugar and canola oil and whisk until frothy.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, and stir to combine.
4. Add flour mixture to liquid.  Stir together just to combine fully; do not overmix.  Spoon batter into cupcake liners, filling half way (they will rise a lot).  Bake for 17 minutes.  Let cool completely.
5. In a medium bowl, beat cheese until smooth.  Add lemon and lime juices (a small amount of lemon and lime extracts might work better here, but I couldn’t find them in my local grocery store) and beat to combine.  Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, beating to incorporate fully.  Continue adding powdered sugar until taste and consistency are as desired – you may need more or less than 3 cups of sugar, and you may need to add more lemon or lime juice to achieve the desired flavor.  Refrigerate the finished frosting for half an hour.
6. Frost the cooled cupcakes.  Top with a maraschino cherry.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Phoebe.  Strawberry-Lemonade Angel Cakes. Phoebe and I were hall neighbors freshman year.  I don’t really remember when we went from awkwardly saying hi in the hallway to having intense late night conversations sitting on the bathroom floor, but it happened, and I’m glad.  Now, although we don’t see each other very frequently, she is one of my absolute favorite people to talk with.  We both spent the summer trapped in Durham and we spent a significant part of every week sitting in the library chatting and debating and laughing while she pretended to study for orgo and I pretended to do research.  Although I’m pretty sure she actually did accomplish learning orgo while the achievements I made in my research this summer were minimal.  Not that I didn’t try.  I think frustration is the point of research.  Anyway.  One of the things I love about Phoebe is her respect for people’s individuality.  She always makes me feel good about what makes me me – loving to be outside, wanting to take care of people, being mellow when it comes to my social life – and she shows equal dedication to and respect for friends that are completely different from me.  And also she’s intelligent and focused and way cooler than me and beautiful.

I made Phoebe lemon-based angel food cupcakes because she loves them.  The first time I made a similar batch we ate them sitting out on the dock by the scummy Belmont pond, and she told me how her mom used to make angel food cake for her birthday every year, and so how could I not make them?  This version of the recipe was super good, at least in my opinion.  The cake had a true lemonade tang and the fresh strawberries really shone through in the frosting.  They were zippy.  I could eat a lot of them.

Strawberry-Lemonade Angel Cakes

Makes 12.

• 1/4 c. sugar
• 1/2 c. cake flour
• 5 egg whites
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 2 tsp lemonade mix powder
• 4 oz. neufchatel cheese, room temperature
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 5-8 fresh strawberries, diced
• 3 c. powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.  Line muffin pan with cupcake liners.
2. In a small bowl, sift together 1/4 c. sugar with cake flour.  Set aside.
3. Beat egg whites until they begin to foam.  Add cream of tartar and continue beating until they are white and fairly fluffy.  Add salt, incorporate.  While continuing to beat egg whites vigorously, slowly add remaining 1/2 c. of sugar in a slow stream.  Beat until egg whites form soft peaks.
4. Fold flour mixture into egg whites, mixing just to incorporate flour fully.  Add lemonade powder (I used 2 packets of crystal light to go) and fold in.
5. Spoon batter into cupcake liners, filling 3/4 of the way.  Bake for 15 minutes.  Allow to cool completely.
6. In a medium bowl, beat neufchatel cheese until smooth.  Add lemon juice and strawberries and stir to incorporate.  Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until desired consistency is reached.  You may need more or less than 3 cups of sugar.

So happy birthday September girls!  And Megan, Margie, get excited.   Start leaving me hints about your favorite flavors.  Or, better yet, start trying to get me to associate your personality with the type of cupcake you want.  That could be a fun experiment.

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Cupcake Lovin’, Part Two

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He’s such a tease.   He’s there, tantalizingly close, and then he’s gone, just like that.  I’m this close to giving up on him completely, but some small part of me can’t let go.  If only he knew how much it would mean to me if he could just sit there, quietly, for 45 seconds.  Stupid bird.

OK, maybe I shouldn’t care so much, but I’ve been trying to get a decent picture of this bird for a full week.  Two cardinals live in the bushes behind my apartment, and they are absolutely stunning.  I’ve always thought cardinals are beautiful – they way their red coats match the berries on an iced-over holly bush can really brighten up a winter day – but I’d never seen them in the summer until I moved here.  That red against the vibrant green foliage of North Carolina in May is just incredible.  Sometimes when one of the birds flies past my window I literally catch my breath.  Just ask Trevor – several Skype conversations have been interrupted recently by a rapid head turn and exclamation of “Bird!” a la Doug from Up.  (Incredible movie.  I could watch it 100 times and laugh/cry every time.)   Once I even hung up on him to run barefoot out the door and chase the birds around the apartment complex.  And yet, where is the stunning photographic evidence of this?  Sadly, nowhere to be found. [Fortunately, I have been able to counter this lack of cardinal photography with what is hopefully stunning cupcake photography.  Cupcakes are very cooperative subjects.]

Now, I’ve been in this situation before.  Last summer, my sole mission in life was to get close enough to one of the loons of Walker Pond to take a good picture.  My brother and I took our clunky old motor boat, The Tub, across the lake to work every morning, and on the days that there was a loon in our vicinity I’d hiss “Ryan, I’ve got to get that bird!”  And like the wonderful brother he is, he would dull the engine, and steer us slowly toward the bird, with me in the front holding my breath and desperately snapping long distance pictures.  We’d almost be close enough and then, without a sound, the loon would be underwater, not even leaving a ripple on the surface.  Admittedly, a gasoline chugging motorboat is not really the ideal stealth vehicle, but taking my camera in any sort of unstable boat is not worth the hyperventilation that occurs as I envision my beautiful Canon sinking to the bottom of the lake.  So when my brother left for school a few days before I did and I was on my own on the boat front (i.e. I canoed; the Tub and I are not compatible individuals, much to my parents’ frustration), my pocket camera was all that accompanied me.  As Trevor and I canoed peacefully across the lake one orange-tinged morning, a loon popped peacefully up about 50 meters in front of us.  And then, one by one, six more popped up next to him.  We paddled silently towards them, getting so close that we could see their shiny red eyes watching us.  It was perfect: seven graceful loons drifting through small puffs of leftover fog, the whole lake silent but for the hesitant chirps of the birds.  And the only photographic evidence I have is a grainy, dull photo with seven small blobs.

And now this cardinal is playing the same game with me.  Oh we’ve had some close calls, the cardinal and I.  There was the time he landed on my drainpipe while I was waiting there, camera poised, only to realize that my shutter speed was way too high, and as I frantically spun the camera wheel, he flitted away like it was nothing.  And then, when I had the camera poised and perfectly adjusted on him resting on a distant branch, he dove out of the field of vision, leaving me with a dramatic red blur streaked across my photo.  Just the other afternoon, he landed on a cannister right outside my window, but I knew if I opened the back door he would leave in a hurry, so there will forever be the stains of my dirty window in between me and that beautiful red bird.

His wife has been more cooperative, but, no offense to her, she’s just not as attractive.  Sure, her beak is nice, and she is certainly distinctive, but she just can’t hold a candle to her male counterpart.  I have a few shots that are OK, but I’m just not satisfied.  With each frustration, the amount of respect I have for the patience that wildlife photographers have in their pursuit of nature’s rarest creatures grows.  I can barely manage standing on my own back porch for half an hour, and so I can’t imagine what standing in sub-zero temperatures for 48 hours waiting for the instantaneous migration of a rare goose in China would be like.  (Yes, someone did this, I saw the exhibit in Prague.)

So, wow, if you came here expecting food and read all of that bird-chasing-nonsense, I definitely owe you a recipe of some sorts.  Unfortunately, I do not know of any cardinal recipes.  And I already shared the only recipe I know that has the world cardinal in it here.  And as Megan just pointed out, eating a loon is probably a felony. So…

Cupcakes!  Everybody loves cupcakes, even if they have absolutely no relevance to the 800 words they just read.  And hopefully you’ve made it to this point because of the tantalizing cupcake photographs that have accompanied my bird saga.  These are cupcakes that I’ve been mulling over in my head for a while – I love the idea of spicy, chai flavored baked goods, and I just couldn’t shake the image of a chai cupcake topped with a tangy raspberry frosting.  So I made some, and they were good.  And they were very pretty.  So I’m happy.

Chai Cupcakes with Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting

(Adapted from Sky High Cakes via Une-Deux Senses)

For the cupcakes (makes 12):

• 2/3 c. whole milk
• 5 bags chai tea
• 2 whole eggs
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/3 c. cake flour
• 1 c. sugar
• 2 1/4 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 stick unsalted butter, softened

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.  Line cupcake tin with liners.
2. Bring milk to a low simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally.  Add tea bags and remove from heat.  Allow to steep for 10 minutes.  Squeeze milk from teabags and discard tea.
3. In a small bowl mix together 1/4 cup of the chai milk with the eggs, egg yolk, and vanilla.
4. In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.  Add butter and remaining chai milk and beat until fluffly.
5. Add egg mixture in two batches and mix just to incorporate.
6. Divide batter evenly among cupcake cups.  Bake for 18-22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.

For the frosting (makes enough for a lot more than 12 – halve, or plan on having extra):

• 1 8oz package of cream cheese, at room temperature
• 3 TBS butter, at room temperature
• 1/4 c. – 1/3 c. raspberry jam
• 2-3 TBS grenadine or raspberry flavored syrup/liquor
• 2 1/2 c. powdered sugar

Beat cream cheese and butter together until fluffy.  Mix in jam and syrup until desired color and flavor is reached.  Mix in powdered sugar a half cup at a time, stopping when desired consistency is reached.  Chill for an hour before using.

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I spent Monday night browsing Tartelette and La Tartine Gourmande fantasizing about what sort of beautifully and elegant spring dessert I wanted to make the next weekend and drooling over their beautiful pictures of their summers at childhood homes in Southern France.  One day I will have been born in Southern France and spend my summers at my ancestral home making tarts from the fresh currants in my garden and sipping cassis at my ancient stone table while looking out over the fields of lavender from underneath an olive tree… until then I will read and re-read Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence and watch Russell Crowe do what, rightfully, I should be doing in A Good Year.   (Actually I highly recommend both the novel and the film – they are literary/cinemographic floo powder to France.)  I toyed with the idea of an elegant version of strawberry shortcake, because strawberries are on sale everywhere right now, or perhaps a trifle-like dish with strawberry and raspberry mouses between layers of almond flavored angel food cake, or maybe a blackberry and mascarpone tart…  And then Tuesday morning, it hit me – all I’d ever wanted was lemon cupcakes with a tart lemon frosting and little bits of candied lemon peel.  Love at first thought.  Maybe this was my brain’s way of saving me from disappointment – whipping cream by hand – as I would have needed to for almost any light and fluffy dessert I was craving – is something I just do not have the patience for.  I tried it, once, in Prague, and after 20 minutes of whisking I had three quarters of a cup of droopy whipped cream and a very sore forearm.  I folded some chocolate into it and it was still delicious, but believe me, I did not share that mousse-like creation with anyone.  (“Who will help me eat this chocolate mousse?” said the Little Red Hen…)

So lemon cupcakes!  The decision was made.  Spring would be celebrated with little tart mouthfuls of lemony goodness.  And now the search for a recipe was on.  Did I want fluffy cupcakes or pound cake-esque cupcakes?  A buttercream or something lighter?  A lemon curd filling, or no?  Did you know there were so many things to think about when making cupcakes?  Yeah, me neither.  I decided fairly quickly that I wanted to try the cream cheese frosting, just because I always feel slightly sick when eating a buttercream that I made myself – if I don’t actually see the three sticks of butter go into the mixer, I’m fine, but if I put them there myself there’s no escaping them.  And cream cheese is slightly better than butter, right?  Right?  I’m going with it.  And in sort of the same vein of thinking, I decided on the angel food cake version, mostly because I’d really like my shorts to continue to fit (start fitting again?) and because fluffy light lemon cupcakes just sound divine.

I have to admit one thing though.  I bought a hand mixer.  Yes, after that little “whipped desserts are too hard I’m making cupcakes!” tangent, I just bought one anyway.  It was $9.99.  The price was right.  I could whip anything now.  But I’m still making cupcakes.  Albeit with the mixer.  Whatever!

A few notes: the frosting came out exactly exactly how I wanted it, with the perfect balance of lemony tang and sweetness, but it was pretty runny.  I wasn’t willing to sacrifice flavor for consistency, so I let my cupcakes be a bit drippy, but I’d recommend sticking the frosting in the fridge for around an hour before using it.  Also, there was enough frosting to frost about 30 cupcakes (I only made 12)… so be aware of that I suppose.  Not that there’s any harm in leftover frosting.  The cake recipe was good – the consistency was just right – but there was hardly any lemon flavor in the cupcakes, even though I added extra lemon juice and zest.  Next time I might try adding the juice of an entire lemon, but I’m not sure what it would do to the batter consistency.

All that being said … cupcakes!

Lemon Angel Food Cupcakes

For the candied lemon peel:

• 1 lemon
• 1/3 c. sugar
• 1/3 c. water
• granulated sugar

1. Thoroughly wash the lemon.  Using a vegetable peeler, carefully peel strips of the lemon zest off of the lemon.  Avoid getting any of the white part (the pith) with your peel strips as it has a very bitter flavor and may ruin the final product.
2. In a small saucepan, make the simple syrup: bring the water and sugar to a gentle simmer.  Add the lemon peel and simmer, stirring constantly, until peel is shiny and translucent, about 5 minutes.  Remove the peel from the syrup and place on wax paper.  Let cool slightly, then roll in granulated sugar.

Great demo here.

For the cupcakes: (adapted very slightly from Baking Bites.)

(Makes 12 cupcakes)

• 5 large egg whites
• 3/4 c. sugar, divided
• 1/2 c. cake flour
• pinch cream of tartar
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• zest of 1 lemon
• juice of 1/2 lemon (about 3 tsp)

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.  Line muffin tin with 12 baking cups.
2. Separate eggs while cold, placing egg whites, completely yolk free, in large mixing bowl.  Allow to come to room temperature.
3. Meanwhile, sift together 1/4 c. sugar and 1/2 c. cake flour.
4. Beat room temperature egg whites on high until they become foamy.  Add cream of tartar and salt and continue to beat on high.  While beating, gradually add remaining half cup of sugar to the whites.  Beat until soft peaks form.
5. Mix vanilla, lemon zest, and lemon juice into whites.
6. In 2 or 3 batches, gently fold flour/sugar mixture into whites, mixing just to combine.
7. Spoon batter into cups.  Cups should be full.  Bake cupcakes for 16-18 minutes.  When they are done, tops will be golden brown and cupcakes will be slightly springy to the touch.

For the frosting:

• 1 8 oz. package of cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 1/3 c. powdered sugar
• juice of 1 lemon

Beat cream cheese on medium until soft.  Gradually add powdered sugar and lemon juice while continuing to beat.  Frosting will be creamy and slightly runny when done.  (For stiffer frosting, increase amount of powdered sugar.)  Refrigerate before using.

*Final notes:  To make the peel, cupcakes, and frosting, you need two lemons – the zest of 1 for the peel, the zest of the other for the cupcakes, the juice of one for the frosting, and the juice of the other for the cupcakes.  Lemons without their peel will not last as long in the fridge, so if you make extra peel, be sure to use the lemons within a few days.

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