0 Lemon Triple Threat

Happy New Year! I hope your holiday season was delightful. I guess the proper thing to do in January is post about a low-fat/low-calorie dessert. But if you know anything about me you know that I don't do low-fat/low-cal dessert. I believe that you can eat dessert as long as it's in moderation. So even if you're watching your waistline, it's okay to have a cupcake every once in awhile. And if I had to pick just one cupcake in the whole wide world, then this lemon cupcake is the one I would choose.

For the cupcake batter I took my meyer lemon cupcake recipe and tweaked it slightly. I replaced some of the buttermilk in that recipe with heavy cream and lemon juice. I filled the cupcakes with a homemade lemon curd and then frosted it with a nice swirl of lemon buttercream. Even though I have an endless supply of meyer lemons from the tree that keeps on giving, I decided to use regular lemons because I really wanted that assertive lemon flavor in all three components.

The buttercream recipe is based on Dorie Greenspan's Swiss buttercream (from her perfect party cake). I decreased the vanilla, increased the amount of lemon juice and added some lemon zest to really up the lemon factor. When you taste it there is no doubt that this is a lemon buttercream.

The lemon curd is very loosely adapted from a recipe on Helen's website. When I first saw her recipe I knew it was exactly what I had been looking for. Most of the time lemon curd recipes have butter, but Helen's recipe has no butter. It's lip-smacking (or should I say lip-puckering?) and absolutely delicious. I could eat a tub of it with nothing but a spoon and smile. (But I have to refrain since I need all of it to fill 2 dozen cupcakes).

Sure, you can use store bought lemon curd. Or you can simplify and just leave out the lemon curd. The unfilled cupcake with the lemon buttercream is still very lemon-y and quite delicious. But if you're going to have just one cupcake it might as well be an awesome one. And the lemon curd filling really elevates this cupcake to awesome.


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