50s retro sunshine Lemon Cupcakes

Good morning everyone, I hope you’ve had a nice weekend and that the coming week will be a good one for all of you.

People often ask me questions on my instagram account @passionforbaking, and I get these questions all the time: “Manuela, where is your café or diner? And who eats all your cakes and goodies?”

There’s no denying that I’m baking all the time, so I can understand that it may seem like I’m running a diner.

I’m sure it must be a lot of fun to run a diner or café, but that has never been my dream. I love what I do; getting up in the mornings, baking whatever I want and then share photos and recipes on my blog. No day is the same in my house, and I find so much inspiration in my daily life. It’s my daily life and kitchen activities which give me the energy to run my blog and to write new cookbooks. But, if I did have a diner, the menu would consist of tempting caramel pies with luscious cream toppings, of course with a shimmering sugar pearl on top! Tall chocolate cakes with delicious frostings, American cheesecakes, cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies with lots of chocolate chunks. My diner would have been a place people wanted to return to, again and again. It would be a diner with plenty of high quality temptations for both adults and children alike. The interior would of course be in the 50s retro style, and a smiling face would greet everyone who came by…

Over to the recipe of the day, introduced by a retro style pic.

I use picmonkey.com to create these pictures, it’s a great program.

Vanilla cupcakes (new recipe)

• 1/2 cup (115 g) unsalted butter
• 1 cup (230 g) regular sugar
• 1 vanilla bean, split in half lengthways and seeds scraped out
• 2 large eggs
• 2 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cup (280 g) all-purpose flour
• 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/4 cup (300 ml) heavy cream

50’s retro sunshine Lemon Cupcakes

• Vanilla cupcakes
• lemon curd
• white cloud frosting

Let’s bake cupcakes.

Preheat the oven to 350 ºF (180 ºC).

Put the butter, sugar and seeds from the vanilla bean into a mixing bowl.

Beat until fluffy, about 3-5 minutes.

Add the eggs one at a time, beat until each egg is just incorporated. Add the vanilla extract with the last egg.

Sift together the flour and baking powder at least twice. Tip into the mixing bowl with the cream and beat until just combined.

Do not overmix.

Line a cupcake tray with paper cases. I use an ice cream scoop to get equally sized cupcakes.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 18 minutes.

Take a little coffee break…

Remove the cupcakes form the oven and leave to cool completely.

Using a small knife or an apple corer, make a little hole in each of the cupcakes. Fill the holes with lemon curd, you can find my recipe here.

Make the White cloud frosting, you can find the recipe here.

Transfer the frosting to a piping bag fitted with a large tip, I use Ateco 849 here.

Pipe three simple swirls onto each of the cupcakes.

Scorch the frosting slightly to get that classic look, I use this blow torch from KitchenCraft.

Ready to serve. Share them with the ones you love…

The freshness of the lemon curd center really makes this cupcake very special!

Please eat me..

That’s it for today, I hope you’re inspired not only to start baking, but also to follow your dreams.

Maybe your dream is to open up a café, or to start a baking blog? No dream is too big or too small.

Wishing you all a wonderful day, hugs from me to you.