The $50 Cupcake

The other day I was flipping through a Williams Sonoma catalog when I stumbled across their Mini Spring Cupcakes (24 mini cupcakes for $49.95). Sure, the cupcakes look adorable and scrumptious but do they really taste that good? Of course, I am not going to order these cupcakes and find out. Instead, I decided to make my own version of these very expensive cupcakes. I call them the $50 cupcake. The WS selection of cupcakes come in vanilla, chocolate or lemon. I opted to make the lemon, since I've never made lemon cupcakes before. For the frosting, I decided to try a lemon cream. If you love lemon, this cupcake is for you. It was very lemony! My kids loved the cupcake part, but not the frosting. And my husband loved both the cupcake and the frosting. I usually make everything with buttercream so I think this was a nice change. But, like I said, it was very lemony!

For the cupcake I used Betty Crocker Lemon cake mix.

Lemon Cream Frosting
3 tablespoons butter, softened
2 1/4 cups confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon clear vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1 to 2 tablespoons milk or water (I used water so I wouldn't have to refrigerate the cupcakes)
Cream the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add the lemon juice, vanilla, lemon peel and water; beat until smooth. Frost your cupcakes as desired. I used Wilton tip 12 to frost mine. You will need to double this recipe if you plan on frosting all of your cupcakes. I was only able to frost half of them. I just put the remanining cupcakes in the freezer (in a covered plastic container). After frosting my cupcakes, I then added a premade flower (which I purchased at a local grocery store) to each one. I think they look fairly similiar to the WS Mini Spring Cupcakes, but for a fraction of the price...and they taste good too!