Raspberry Lemonade Cupcakes

In my recent exploration of food blogs, one of the first I got hooked on was love & olive oil.  I have to admit, it was mostly because of the wide variety of interesting gourmet cupcake recipes.  I decided Strawberry Lemonade would be a reasonable first effort.  I was unsure how the cupcakes would come out, but I went and got the necessary ingredients nonetheless.

Before I even went shopping, I decided raspberry jam would be a perfectly reasonable substitution for pureed strawberries, so strawberry lemonade cupcakes became raspberry lemonade cupcakes.

The cupcake batter was really easy to make -- I’ve always been somewhat wary of homemade cake, but no problems here.  I was a little worried when I added the coconut milk, which has a very distinct and not very pleasant scent.  I also managed to make quite a mess, so I cleaned up while the cupcakes baked.

Then came the frosting.  In the recipe post, there was some noted difficulty with the frosting, but I figured if hers came out ok, mine would come out ok too.

WRONG.  First problem was again my lack of proper equipment.  The frosting was meringue-based which meant I needed a double broiler.  However, I could not find a surely heat proof bowl to put over a pan, so I ended up wrapping my arm in a towel and holding a tiny bowl which I was half expecting to melt while I whisked feverishly.

I’m not sure if my “ingenuity” had any part in the failing of the frosting though, as I then misread an instruction in the recipe.  I then experienced the rather expected problem of the frosting separating.  The recipe said just to keep beating if this happened.  I did.  Either our mixer just doesn’t have enough oomph, or the frosting was just doomed from the start.

I still needed frosting though, so I grabbed another stick of butter threw in powdered sugar, lemon, extract, and raspberry jam until it tasted about how I wanted it.  Surprisingly, winging it worked out pretty well.  I frosted all the cupcakes, handed one to a friend, and grabbed one myself, not knowing what to expect.

Huh.  Tasty.  The cupcakes themselves, despite being pretty crumbly, were nice and moist and delicious.  The makeshift frosting had a good balance of lemon and raspberry.  My friend ate three while he was over, so I’ll take that as success.

Update: I find the cupcakes taste better if you refrigerate them.  I think it’s because it sets up my frosting a little better.