Strawberry-Lemonade Cupcakes:-)!

Happy Mother's Day to all of the mommies out there! I woke up to a wonderful greeting by my fur babies ;) and got to make breakfast for my mother! (Breakfast casserole I will post tomorrow!) We are heading out to the lake to meet my grandmother, my great-grandmother, and my aunt for a mother's day extravaganza! I wanted to bring a dessert that reminded me of this time of year, light, summery, and pink! I was inspired by a post I saw here: http://blogs.babble.com/family-kitchen/2011/08/22/lemonade-cupcakes-with-raspberry-frosting/ for Lemonade cupcakes with Raspberry frosting and I thought that I would want a lemonade cupcake with strawberry frosting, I love strawberry lemonade!

The lemon cake is light and lemony and the frosting has real strawberry jam in it to complement the lemon perfectly. Plus it comes out such a pretty pink color! Who doesn't love a pink cupcake?!

Ingredients:

Lemonade cake mix:

1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

grated zest and juice of 1 lemon

1 cup milk

Step 1: Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.

Step 2: Cream the sugar and butter together. Add lemon zest and lemon juice until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time until fully incorporated. Beat in vanilla.

Step 3: In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Step 4: Add the flour mixture and the milk to the butter mixture in alternating thirds, starting with the flour, until just combined.

Step 5: Fill the prepared tins and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting.

Strawberry frosting:

1 container of vanilla premade frosting

1 jar of seedless strawberry jam

Step 1: Combine frosting and jam until combined and pour into piping bag for frosting (I don't ever buy real piping bags, I use gallon sized ziplocs!)

Enjoy! One more question, why do cupcakes always taste better than cake? Is it the size you can hold in your hand? Or is it the proportion of cake to frosting? Whatever it is, I love a good cupcake.