Food I Love - Citrus Cupcakes

One of my dreams in life is to become an awesome experienced baker. You really didn't think I'd leave out "food I love" from my month of "things I love" posts, now did you? 

These citrus cupcakes are the yummiest 'from scratch' cupcakes that I've ever made. They're sweet, tart, and if a cupcake can be refreshing then they're that too. The frosting is something I stumbled upon in a Martha Day recipe book. Although it sounds kind of complicated to make it's really neat and incredibly delicious, plus it doesn't have gobs of butter, or heavy whipping cream like most frosting recipes so we can pretend it's healthy too.

Makes 12 cupcakes:

1 1/4 cups flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 eggs
3/4 cups sugar

grated zest of one lemon

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

1/2 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.

In a separate bowl beat together the eggs and sugar until thick and lemon colored.

Beat in the lemon zest and juice, then oil.

On low speed beat in the flour mixture a little at a time.

Spoon batter into 12 cupcake cups.

Bake for 25 minutes (until knife comes out clean).

For the frosting/ Icing:

1 cup sugar

5 tablespoons of cold water

1 egg white

Mix the sugar with water and stir over low heat on the stove until the sugar is dissolved. Then boil until the sugar syrup reaches 240 degrees on a candy thermometer. Remove from heat.

Beat the egg white until stiff. Add the sugar syrup in a thin stream beating constantly. Continue to beat until the mixture is very thick. Frost cupcakes once cooled. And then enjoy. Yum!

I always stream the hot sugar syrup right into the beaten egg white. I'm not sure if it makes any difference what temperature the sugar is at when you combine the two. I figure the 240 degree sugar must cook the egg white so I'm not worried at all about bacteria. For this recipe I grated a tiny bit of lemon rind into the sugar water mixture as the sugar was dissolving. It was probably less than 1/4 teaspoon but it gave the frosting a great zing. I love these cupcakes!