Meyer Lemon Cupcakes

I might sound like a sourpuss, but I love lemons. I think I might have mentioned once that I even drizzle lemon-flavored olive oil over my ice cream just so I can get that lemony zing with my creamy vanilla.

Well, it’s citrus season in California and a neighbor/friend gave me a bag of Meyer lemons from his tree. I love it when friends have fruit-bearing trees because typically they have more fruit than they know what to do with. (BTW, anyone who lives in the Oakland area with a fig or pomegranate tree, hola!)

As a lemon lover, the Meyer is really special because the skin is smoother and deeper in color, making it very photogenic. And the flavor is slightly sweeter, almost like a tangerine, but still sour for us lemon lovers.

I ended up making cupcakes with my bag of Meyer lemons. The recipes came from my previous attempt to make Creamsicle Cupcakes, but instead of adding orange juice, I just replaced everything with lemon. It went like this:

1) Make the cupcakes using the recipe I got from Cupcakerecipe.com. Here’s the link to the recipe. Again, wherever it says orange, insert lemon. It makes about a dozen cupcakes if you fill it about ¾ of the muffin pan instead of half like the recipe says. (I found that if you fill it halfway, you end up with leftover batter, which means you could actually make about 18 cupcakes. That happened to me the last time.)

2) I love filled cupcakes even though it’s more work. I cut an inverted cone off the top of the cupcake and then filled the gap with lemon curd (again, using Meyer lemons in the recipe). I used this simple recipe from the Barefoot Contessa. You’ll actually end up making more curd than you need, so you can use your curd to pour over ice cream or scones. (NOTE: Since you're filling the cupcakes with lemon curd, you should refrigerate them if you're not eating them right away.)

3) After I replaced the tops back on the cupcakes, I frosted it with a simple lemon icing. Again, I just used the recipe here from Cupcakes.com but replaced orange with lemon juice. To make it extra pretty, I sprinkled my cupcakes with chopped pecans and almonds.

The cupcake itself wasn’t very lemony, but I got a lot of lemon from the curd filling and the lemon icing on top. It was more than enough lemony goodness to make this sourpuss happy. Enjoy!