Jumping

Welcome to my first blog post! As the title suggests, I am jumping right in, and starting with one of my favorite cupcake recipes. Saturday morning was beautiful, still brisk from our latest cold snap here in Germany. Snow lightly covered the ground but the morning sun had me wishing for tulips, daffodils, and all types of spring flowers. With everything feeling like spring and all the festivals happening in the area, I decided that my Lemon Raspberry cupcakes were the way to go. I  was invited to a dear friends house for a dinner party and decided they would be perfect for dessert. Result? A-MAZING! 

I used a simple lemon cake recipe with a few adjustments and the frosting is cream cheese frosting mixed w/ raspberry preserves. 

The cake recipe I followed was:

3 cups self rising flour (I used All-purpose, because that was all I had)

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cups white sugar

4 eggs at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons lemon zest

1 cup whole milk (I used 1% milk since we don't buy whole milk)

2 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 

I also added 1 teaspoon of lemon extract because I love the extra lemony flavor and this time of year lemons don't have the best flavor. 

Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting: 

2 (8 ounce) packages of cream cheese, softened 

1/2 cup butter, softened 

2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

3/4 cups raspberry preserves 

This frosting was a lot looser than usual because I used homemade raspberry preserves which had a little more liquid than store bought. I was unable to do anything fancy with the frosting. Nonetheless, I think the frosting turned out great! 

 I hope you enjoyed my first post and check back often to see what I'm baking up.