Blueberry Lemon Basil Cupcakes
Hubby and I are in a cooking club. We meet once a month at someones house. The host picks a theme and we all make something from that theme and watch a movie that also fits into the theme. This month, hubby and I hosted and our theme was “Stuff It!” (and we watched The Right Stuff). I decided to make Stuffed tomatoes, Bacon wrapped goat cheese stuffed dates, Stuffed strawberries, and of course Stuffed cupcakes. I’ll be posting about the rest of those goodies soon…
So for the cupcakes, I wanted to do something summery. Hubby loves blueberries so I decided to do lemon cupcakes stuffed with blueberries and blueberry preserves. I found this recipe while I was on the hunt for a good lemon recipe and was intrigued at the idea of putting basil into the frosting. So I made half of my frosting without the basil and half with the basil.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the basil flavor in the frosting. I thought it could have used a little more basil. Maybe since I did a buttercream instead of frosting, it wasn’t as prominent as the original blogger’s was.
The cake was deliciously lemony and very moist. I really loved this cake. The Swiss meringue buttercream was a hit as always.
Lemon Cupcakes – from A Good Appetite – makes 6 (I doubled to make 12)
2/3 c all-purpose flour
1/4 t baking soda
1/4 t baking powder
pinch of salt
3 T unsalted butter, softened
1/3 c sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
zest of one lemon
juice of one lemon
1/4 c plain yogurt
Preheat oven to 350 and prepare muffin tins.
Stir flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt together. Set aside.
Beat the butter until light and fluffy. On high speed, gradually beat in the sugar until light & fluffy. Lower speed and add egg, beating until just blended. Then beat in lemon zest & lemon juice. On low speed beat in flour mixture & yogurt until just blended. This will be a very light fluffy batter.
Divide half the batter evenly among the 6 muffin tins. Place a scant teaspoon of blueberry basil sauce on top of the batter in each cup, try to keep to the center as much as possible. Top with the remaining batter.
Bake for 18 minutes. The edges should just be turning golden brown. Let cool on wire rack.
Lemon Basil Buttercream – adapted from DB recipe
– I made a 1/2 batch and it covered my 12 cupcakes. This is the 1/2 batch of frosting:
1/2 cup sugar
2 large egg whites
1 1/2 sticks (6 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/8 cup fresh lemon juice (from 1 large lemons)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
6 large basil leaves, chopped (next time I’d use more)
Put the sugar and egg whites in a mixer bowl or another large heatproof bowl, fit the bowl over a plan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes.
The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like shiny marshmallow cream.Remove the bowl from the heat.
Working with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the meringue on medium speed until it is cool, about 5 minutes.
Switch to the paddle attachment if you have one, and add the butter a stick at a time, beating until smooth.
Once all the butter is in, beat in the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6-10 minutes.
During this time the buttercream may curdle or separate – just keep beating and it will come together again.
On medium speed, gradually beat in the lemon juice, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more, and then the vanilla.
I divided the frosting in 1/2 so that I could make some with and some without the basil. Stir basil into frosting.
To assemble cupcakes:
Once cupcakes are completely cool, use the cone method to put about a tsp of blueberry preserves and 1 fresh blueberry into the cupcakes.
Pipe frosting onto cupcake tops. Garnish with blueberry or small basil leaf.
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 always loved fig newtons too 🙂 I have never thought of making my own. Now I know where to find a great recipe 😉
I am going to have to make these. As well as making them with some blackberries.
These look amazing and waaaay better than the store bought brand.
My husband loves fig newtons – just added this to my ever growing list of things to make!
I liked Newtons until they messed with the recipe…Maybe this version will be yummier.
I love the idea of making these at home! I still buy Newtons from time to time…they’re so nice and wholesome.
You are so creative! My family loves Fig Newtons….can’t wait to make these!
My boyfriend and I were just talking about fig newtons this evening! I was saying how much I loved them but hadnt had them recently.. and heres a way to make them myself!
I moved to the US when I was 15 so I didn’t grow up eating fig newtons but I liked them at my very first bite. I’m sure the homemade version is so much more gourmet 😉 Your pics make it look like raspberry filling which I bet would be amazing!!
These bring me back to my childhood! Only, these look infinitely more delicious and decadent. The Blue-Eyed Bakers must make these soon!
They look fantastic, and I’ve never actually been that much of a Fig Newton fan. Love the polka dot background for the pics too.
I love fig newtons. Hopefully, I can find my figs around here so I can try these.
http://www.lindaslunacy.blogspot.com
Congratulations on making one of the top food blogs!
Jonathan
Gluten Free
I was always a fig newton-lover as a kid too! Glad I wasn’t the only one and these homemade ones look fantastic!
I did make these and loved them! I did just what you suggested and used a little less of dough for that amount of filling and just made some grape jam filled ones with the rest of the dough. They came out perfect! Thanks for sharing!
http://ouritaliankitchen.blogspot.com/2010/10/fig-newtons.html
When you say scoop out the seeds and pulp–I am assuming you mean, use the seeds and pulp and discard the skins? Recipe looks good. I’m planning to make these tomorrow!
When you say scoop out the seeds and pulp–I am assuming you mean, use the seeds and pulp and discard the skins? Recipe looks good. I’m planning to make these tomorrow!
When you say scoop out the seeds and pulp–I am assuming you mean, use the seeds and pulp and discard the skins? Recipe looks good. I’m planning to make these tomorrow!
When you say scoop out the seeds and pulp–I am assuming you mean, use the seeds and pulp and discard the skins? Recipe looks good. I’m planning to make these tomorrow!
When you say scoop out the seeds and pulp–I am assuming you mean, use the seeds and pulp and discard the skins? Recipe looks good. I’m planning to make these tomorrow!
When you say scoop out the seeds and pulp–I am assuming you mean, use the seeds and pulp and discard the skins? Recipe looks good. I’m planning to make these tomorrow!
Laurel, Mikey & Quinn – Yes, scoop out the flesh and seeds and discard the skins. Let me know how they turn out!
Thank you for posting this! Great recipe and I want to try with different fillings. I used strawberry for mine – yummy!
In response to the dough ratio, I made it the way you posted but ended up with very thin dough once it was rolled out to 12×16 inches. I think you should leave it doubled.
Hi, I want to make raspberry newtons and am finding it very hard to get an easy recipe online… think I could use this dough with raspberry jam?
beantownbaker — May 16th, 2013 @ 8:41 am
You could definitely use raspberry jam for the filling!
I made them with 3 different fillings: strawberry jam, blueberry pie filling and vanilla cream. All came out very tasty, and also last freezing nicely.
A few comments:
1. The dough was not easy to deal with, even after cooling. It was sticky and fell apart easily.
2. With the first roll I made, I sliced it to cookies and separated them on the baking pan before baking. All of the Jam oozed out. The other ones I sliced but didn’t move the pieces, and it came out well.
3. I think in order to taste like real newtons they lack some oats/cereal. Any Idea of how to add some to the dough?
beantownbaker — June 10th, 2013 @ 1:10 pm
I would think you could grind up some oats and replace some of the flour with the ground up oats. If you try it, I’d love to hear how they turn out!