Lemon Cupcakes
One of hubby’s coworkers, George, has been asking for Lemon cupcakes ever since I made these lemon cookies. Hubby and I both weren’t huge fans of the cookies, but George LOVED them.
After the January DB challenge, I had about a cup or so of leftover lemon curd. I could have eaten it all with a spoon, but I figured I could mix them into a cupcake instead.
I used the vanilla cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and added about 3/4 cup of lemon curd to the batter at the end. Then I put a teaspon of lemon curd directly on top of the cooled cupcakes. Last, I topped them with cool-whip frosting with the rest of the lemon curd mixed into it. I also threw some lemon zest into the frosting for texture.
These cupcakes were great. The lemon flavor was subtle and the cool-whip frosting balanced the flavors well. The recipe made 14 cupcakes, 12 of which went to work with hubby. He reported back that George ate 4 and said that he loves me 🙂
Lemon Cupcakes – adapted from Vanilla cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take over The World – makes 14
1 cup soy milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp cornstarch
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup non-hydrogenated margarine, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extrat, caramel extract, or more vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 and line muffin pan with cupcake liners.
Whisk the soy milk and vinegar in a measuring cup and set aside a few minutes to get good and curdled.
Sift the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl and mix.
In a separate large bowl, use a handheld mixer at medium speed to cream the margarine and sugar for about 2 minutes until light and fluffy, but don’t beat past 2 minutes. Beat in the vanilla and other extract, if using, then alternate beating in the soy milk mixture and dry ingredients, stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl a few times.
I then folded in 3/4 cup of lemon curd.
Fill cupcake liners two-thirds of the way and bake for 20-22 minutes until done. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely before frosting.
Cool-Whip frosting – not sure of the original recipe, but here’s what I did:
1 tub Cool Whip
1 pkg vanilla pudding
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup lemon curd
2 tsp lemon zest
Combine pudding mix and milk and stir until mostly dissolved. Add remaining ingredients and stir until combined.
To Assemble cupcakes:
After cupcakes have cooled, scoop 1 tsp of lemon curd onto the top of each cupcake. Spread lemon curd with a knife to cover top of cupcake.
Pipe frosting on top of lemon curd.
Sprinkle with yellow sugar.






I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 






I love blueberries in pancakes and waffles. They’ve gotta be good in cinnamon rolls too!
Yum! I have always wanted to make my own cinnamon rolls but have always been a tad nervous about he process!!! These look amazing with the blueberries!!
P.S. I found your blog today when you posted that you were from Boston on Tina’s blog! I am from just outside of Boston too!
these look amazing. I love cinnamon rolls, and this combo sounds great!
Can you tell me how to make the frosting?
I love the blueberry, I tried swapping them with raspberries and they were just as good if not better. Love the base recipe.
I made these today cheating with crescent roll dough. They were amazing!
Da bomb! Brilliant, as well as yummy:)
Thank you! I will make an impression at brunch tomorrow..lol
Made these for Easter breakfast (blueberry cinnamon rolls, hardboiled eggs, and thick sliced ham slices). What a delicious treat! I don’t know if I’ll ever go back “regular” cinnamon rolls again! I cut the recipe in half. Perfect amount for my husband, myself, and 3 teenaged boys. Honestly, I can’t say enough about this recipe. These rolls are worth every minute spent making them. To avoid having to get up so early, I saved the second rise for the morning. After slicing the rolls and placing them in the greased pan, I covered them tightly with plastic wrap and placed them in the fridge overnight. I took them out of the fridge and let them set at room temperature to rise for about an hour before placing them in the oven. They were perfect! Thanks so much!
beantownbaker — April 27th, 2014 @ 2:50 pm
So glad you enjoyed them!! I’ve done the second rise the next morning as well.
Forgot to mention that a step was left out of the recipe: it never tells you to sprinkle the rolled out dough with sugar and cinnamon mixture (& 2 T flour?).
beantownbaker — April 27th, 2014 @ 3:01 pm
Thanks for pointing this out. I updated the recipe to reflect this.
Hi there – I was wondering if this dough would be okay to freeze? I’m a novice when it comes to anything baking related!
beantownbaker — September 2nd, 2014 @ 7:14 pm
I have blogged about freezing cinnamon rolls here: http://www.beantownbaker.com/2011/01/pumpkin-cinnamon-rolls.html I like to par-bake them, then freeze them, then finish baking them when you want them.
I found that the cinnamon was over powering. I will add 3 tsp next time 4 Tablespoons was way to much.
Is there any kneading involved???