Lori’s Lemon Raspberry Cupcakes

There is a Chinese proverb that says, When the student is ready, the master appears.  Well, if you are ready, the master (or rather mistress) of recipes is here.  Back in 2000, Lori left schooling elementary children and started her website, Recipe Girl.  However, once a teacher, always I teacher.  For eleven years now Lori has been educating her readers in all things food.  Looking for a healthy dish to serve your family, click on Lori’s feature, Eating Healthy in 2011 and you have pages upon pages of alphabetized recipes, complete with tantalizing photos to choose from, be it a vegetable, dessert or main dish.  Going to be working all day and don’t want to have to worry about dinner?  Click on Recipe Girl’s Crock Pot feature and all you have to do is select a recipe, purchase your ingredients and let your crock pot do the rest.  Those with a sweet tooth won’t be disappointed either.  Lori is a self-confessed sweet fanatic and shares her tried and true favorite cookies and bars with her readers.  Company coming for Easter?  Need an idea for entertaining and feeding them?  Recipe Girl has your back with her easy choose and click Entertainment page.  If you haven’t bookmarked Lori’s site, now is your chance.  Guaranteed that you will  also enjoy browsing through her blog!   I’m delighted that Lori is sharing her recipe and her story here on our site today.  You can follow Lori on Twitter @RecipeGirl

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I’ll never forget the day. I was teaching my 2nd grade class back in 2000, when I was called into the front office to take a call from my husband. His mother had been in surgery that day, and they just learned she had ovarian cancer. My husband was upset, which meant that I dissolved into a puddle of tears too. Those two words… ovarian… cancer… and then hearing that it was a stage three. My Mother-in-Law (Ana) was raised by aunts because her own mother died of ovarian cancer when she was just a baby. And now, I feared, she was surely going to suffer this fate as well. I returned to my classroom and tried to keep it together, but when it was clear that I was unable to keep my emotions intact, my principal sent me home to be with family. The family rallied around Ana, said a lot of prayers and did what they could to get her well again. Ana went through several months of aggressive chemotherapy and thankfully went into remission.  Lori keeps her site chock full of information and recipes and she even finds the time to post on her blog.

Seven years later, Ana was diagnosed with her 2nd cancer, apparently unrelated to the ovarian: colon cancer. Doctors weren’t as worried about this one. They did surgery, removed the cancerous parts and said that they didn’t think she needed any chemo. So she listened to the doctors- no chemo.

Two years after that, Ana was diagnosed with cancer a 3rd time- this time in the liver, though they didn’t call it liver cancer. They said that the colon cancer she previously had metastasized and traveled into her liver. They did surgery again and ordered a round of chemotherapy. This left us all wondering if she had gone through chemo with the colon cancer, would she have been spared this re-occurrence?

All is well now. The ovarian cancer, now gone 10+ years, was initially the big worry. Doctors say that it’s not likely to reappear. Now it’s the unassuming colon cancer that we have to worry about… possibly popping up in other places at one time or another. We certainly hope and pray it won’t rear its ugly head again.

My Mother In Law loves pink. She has a pink bedroom, lots of pink accessories floating around her house, pink nail polish and more often than not she is wearing a pink sweater. These Lemon- Raspberry Cupcakes were baked in honor of Ana.

Here’s the How-To:

Start with a lemony-scented cake batter. This is the hard part for me… I’m a cake batter kind of girl. Eating it by the spoonful is not uncommon!

A little scoop of batter into each muffin cup is what you start with. Just a little.

Then add a teaspoonful of seedless raspberry jam.

Another scoop of batter on top of the jam.

This is how you want a cupcake to look after it’s baked… flat on top. It makes icing it so much easier. These are perfect.

Lemon- Raspberry Cupcakes need a simple raspberry buttercream frosting. Butter + raspberry jam + powdered sugar. That’s it. And it creates its own beautiful mauve color too.

Pretty frosting should be tucked into a pastry bag with a pretty tip. I used a Wilton 1M for decorating.

Moving the tip from center to outside, back to center to outside again, etc. creates a nice design.

And here it is… with pearls, because my Mother In Law is very rarely seen without a strand of pearls around her neck.

And here’s a sneak peek at the inside. Yep, they’re good. A light and lemony cupcake with a small raspberry surprise tucked inside. The frosting is sweet, and it’s a lovely combination with the lemon cake.

LEMON-RASPBERRY CUPCAKES

cupcake ingredients:
3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 teaspoons grated lemon zest
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups self rising flour
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
12 teaspoons seedless raspberry jam

frosting ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam
3 to 4 cups powdered sugar

Prepare the cupcakes
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 12 cup muffin tin with paper liners.

2. Using an electric mixer, beat butter, powdered sugar and lemon zest in a large bowl until fluffy and well blended. Add eggs; beating to blend. Beat in half the flour, then buttermilk and lemon juice, then the remaining flour.

3. Drop a spoonful of the cupcake batter into the bottom of each muffin cup. Spoon 1 teaspoon of raspberry jam on top of the batter of each muffin cup. Divide remaining batter among muffin cups to top the jam.

4. Bake 18 to 22 minutes, until toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Cool cupcakes completely before frosting.

5. Prepare the frosting: In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and raspberry jam together until well mixed and smooth. Add powdered sugar, a cup at a time, until you reach a consistency that you desire. I used 3 cups for this recipe, which I found perfect for piping. Frost cupcakes- either by spreading frosting onto the cupcakes with a knife or by scooping the frosting into a piping bag for a more decorative look.

Yield: 12 cupcakes

Source: This recipe was loosely adapted from a recipe in Bon Appetit