My mom recently celebrated a Birthday, and for me, it meant a bright green light to make a delicious dessert. If you haven't figured out already, I LOVE making/baking desserts and getting to share them! I was scrolling through Pinterest, (as I do when trying to come up with ideas) and came across a recipe for Vanilla Cupcakes with Lemon Curd and Blackberry Buttercream Frosting from the blog Cake-N-Knife that looked totally delicious. She has her own recipe for vanilla cake from scratch, and even though it sounded delectable, I didn't quite have the time before the celebration. It already being quite late that evening the day before the party, I decided to run to the supermarket and get the lemon curd, buttercream ingredients and a vanilla boxed cake to guarantee they would be done on time.

For the Cake

Like I said before, I used a pre-made vanilla cake mix, but to give it that "made-from-scratch" taste I added a teaspoon of vanilla extract for extra flavor, and about a tablespoon of sour cream in order to make it nice and moist. Then, use the directions on the box and you're good to go!

For the Frosting

Her recipe calls for:

1/2 cup blackberries, pureed and strained
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
4 cups confectioner’s sugar
1/4 tsp salt
Additional blackberries for garnish (Although I personally candied some lemon peel because I had some lemons at home!)

I actually decided to whip my frosting to ensure it was soft and fluffy. Instead of a blackberry puree, I bought frozen blackberries, measured them, microwaved them until malleable, then using a spatula and a sieve mushed them through, straining out all of the yummy blackberry juice into a container. Then, I took 1/4 of the seeds in the sieve and put them aside, discarding the rest. I put two sticks of room temperature unsalted butter into the stand mixer and using the paddle attachment, beat it for 4-5 minutes. This is a trick I use in all of my buttercreams to help ensure they are smooth and not grainy.

After that's all nice and silky, slow the speed of the mixture to low and put in half of the confectioners sugar and beat for about 2 minutes on medium speed. Then put in the other half and beat on medium for another 1-2 minutes. Add in the blackberry juice, the seeds, and the salt and give it another good whip until it looks nice and combined and has the texture you were wanting. I added that small amount of seeds back in to give it a texture that it would have lacked- but it's totally optional!

The lemon curd is very sweet and tart, and matches perfectly with the frosting. I put the lemon curd into a pipping bag with a long tip and squeezed about a 1/2 tablespoon into the middle of each cupcake.

Candied Lemon Peel

So, since I had some lemons on hand, I decided to bring the lemon flavors back into the spotlight- I didn't want them to be overshadowed by the blackberry buttercream! What I did was cut the lemons into slices about 1/4 inch thick and removed the juicy part. I put that into a tupperware to use later. I then cut the rings in half so the peels were in long strips. I put a couple of cups of water on the stove and put the lemon peels in while cold, then I brought it to a boil. I drained the water and rinsed the peels, then repeated the process with fresh cold water.

You're supposed to do that three times, but I wanted my lemon peels extra sweet, so I did it five times. After the last time, I put in two cups of fresh cold water and two cups of sugar, and I brought that to a boil until I had a light syrup. Then I brought the syrup to a simmer and threw in all my blanched lemon peels, and cooked them on low until the white fluffy part of the peel was completely translucent. I brought them out to dry for about 10 minutes and then tossed them in sugar. After they are all nice and sparkly, pop one on top of your cupcake and they will look absolutely beautiful!

Everyone at the party loved them so much that we actually made it into a cake for my grandma's birthday! I'll share some details from that in another blog post, so stay tuned! Don't forget to follow me here and follow my friends over at Cake-N-Knife :)

What are your guys' favorite flavors to use in summer desserts?