Last Wednesday I made cupcakes to celebrate my 1 year blogiversary.  I don’t NEED a reason to make cupcakes but that’s my excuse! And I’m sticking to it. I wanted something summery and refreshing.  So I made Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes.  Here is my version.

Cake Ingredients:

• Boxed cake (I used Duncan Hines Lemon Cake)
• 1 1/3 Cups Water
• 1/3 Cup Vegetable Oil
• 3 Larges
• Lemon Extract, Emulsion or Lemon Flavored Liquor (optional)  I used some Carvella Limoncello I had on had for some extra flavor.

Glaze Ingredients:

• 1 Cup Confectioners Sugar
• 2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice

Frosting Ingredients:

• 1 Cup Butter (2 sticks) room temperature
• 1/2 Cup Pureed Strawberries
• 2 Pounds Confectioner’s Sugar

Directions:

CAKE

I followed the directions on the back of the box to bake the cake.  I was lazy and didn’t want to make my batter from scratch.  I followed the directions on the back of the box.  I did add a little extra flavor by adding about a shot of the Carvella Limoncello.  On a side note, I love mixing limoncello with lemonade on a warm summer day.  I mixed the cake mix, water, vegetable oil, eggs and limoncello in my stand mixer and mixed until smooth.

My batter made 21 cupcakes.  I could have stretched out to 24 if I hadn’t over filled some of them.  I placed them in my oven at 325 degrees and baked for 21 minutes.

While the cupcakes were baking, I did a quick clean up in the kitchen, washed the dishes I needed to reuse, and I may or may not have danced my socks off to One Direction.

GLAZE

Once the cupcakes were out and cooling, I continued to bebop around my kitchen to listening to various boy bands, while making the lemon glaze.  For this I mixed 1 cup confectioners sugar and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. I set it aside and started on the frosting.

Once the cupcakes were cool, I took the glaze and spread it it on the top of each cupcakes.

FROSTING

For the frosting I rinsed the strawberries and removed the stems, and placed them in my handy bullet.  I screwed the cover on and pulsed it until the berries were pureed.  Next I placed the two sticks of room temperature butter into my mixer and put my stand mixer on low.  When the butter was mixed a bit, I added the strawberries and mixed them for about a minute, maybe two.  I slowly began to add the confectioners sugar until the frosting got to the consistency I liked.

To top the cupcake off, I placed a lemon drop on the top.

If you’ve tried these let me know!  Do you have a variation?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.