Make eggless lemon cupcakes topped with a strawberry frosting to die for with this easy recipe!
My favourite season is here – the strawberry season! If there’s one ingredient that I absolutely love baking with, it has to be strawberries, closely followed by lemons. So for a little bit of colour in this dark and gloomy weather, I baked with these two and came up with the dessert of the year!
These Lemon Cupcakes are the absolute best and when you top them with my strawberry frosting, they become even better! I’ve baked these cupcakes before, and they turn out fantastic every time- moist, buttery, with just the right amount of that lemony zing. What more do you need to turn around this drab weather? And about the frosting, let’s just say it is going to be one of THE BEST strawberry frosting you will ever taste. EVER. These days I only open the door to my fridge to eat a spoonful of this thing, and mind you..I’m not a frosting person. I would take muffins over cupcakes any day (don’t forget to check out my muffin recipes, I’ve got quite a lot of them; sweet and savory both – Nutella Stuffed Cinnamon Muffins, Blueberry and Cinnamon Muffins, Cheese and Jalapeno Muffins and many more) but this frosting won me over! I always say that I’m not a huge fan of over sweet frosting and to balance the sweetness I stay away from powdered sugar. So for this frosting recipe as well I used icing sugar, and not a lot of it. The whipping cream in the icing helps hold the texture with the icing sugar so it all works out harmoniously.
The best part about these muffins is that they’re eggless, completely! All you vegetarians can now rejoice 😀 I always recommend adding an egg to about a cup of flour but these cupcakes are moist enough with out them because I added buttermilk. Buttermilk is a great addition to any of your baked products because it not only lends moisture but also make your cupcakes and cakes moist and fluffy. To make these cupcakes you need really basic ingredients but a little patience and time so get started now! Read the recipe before you get started and let me know if you try these out! I’d love to know your views 🙂
- For Lemon Cupcakes
- • Softened Butter, 70 grams
- • Powdered Sugar, 70 grams
- • Lemon Zest, of 1 large lemon or 2 small ones
- • Lemon Juice, 1 tablespoon
- • Vanilla Essence, 1 teaspoon
- • All Purpose Flour, 128 grams or 1 cup
- • Baking Powder, 1-1/2 teaspoon
- • Buttermilk, 120 ml or ½ cup* (to learn how to make instant buttermilk, read below)
- • Milk, 50 ml
- For the Strawberry Frosting
- • Fresh Strawberries, 1 cup
- • Softened Unsalted Butter (or white butter), 150 grams
- • Whipping cream (Rich's or any other brand), 4 tablespoon
- • Icing Sugar, 125 grams
- • Vanilla essence, 1 teaspoon
- To Assemble
- • Chopped Strawberries, ½ cup
- • Sliced Strawberries, to decorate
- • Sliced lemon quarters, to decorate
- *For Instant Buttermilk: Heat ½ cup or 120ml of milk until it boils, next add in 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to it and heat again until the milk curdles. Sieve out the curdled part and use the leftover liquid as buttermilk as directed in the recipe.
- For Lemon Cupcakes: Preheat oven at 200 degrees Celsius.
- Whisk butter until light and fluffy. When the butter turns pale yellow in color add in the sugar and whisk again until the mixture is light and fluffy.
- Add in the vanilla essence, lemon juice, lemon zest and mix. In a separate bowl, sift flour and baking powder.
- Add the flour mix to the butter mix little by little, keep alternating with buttermilk. When you run out of butter milk start adding milk to the flour mix. Mix sparingly, DO NOT WHISK.
- You should have a smooth batter by now, toss this batter into a greased cupcake tray with 9 holes (3 inches diameter and 1 inch deep). Line the cupcake tray with paper cups to ensure that the cupcakes don’t stick to it. Bake at 180 degree Celsius for about 15 minutes minutes or until well risen and slightly golden. (While your cupcakes are baking you can start prepping your frosting; recipe below)
- Insert a skewer in the center of the cupcakes and if it comes out clean with a few crumbs then your cupcakes are ready. Let them cool on a wire rack. If your cupcakes are not done after 15 minutes bake them for another 5 minutes and check again for doneness.
- For the Strawberry Frosting: Start by making the strawberry puree. In a food processor, add in the strawberries (leaves removed) and whizz them until smooth. On a skillet, cook the strawberries on a really low heat until they're reduced to about 3 tablespoons. This should take about 15 minutes. Make sure you reduce the puree otherwise your frosting will be really runny. Let the puree cool in a refrigerator while you prepare the frosting.
- Whisk butter until light and fluffy, for about 5 minutes. In a separate bowl whisk the whipping cream until it triples in volume and forms stiff peaks.
- Fold in the whipping cream to the whisked butter and add in the icing sugar, cooled strawberry puree and vanilla essence.
- Refrigerate the frosting for about 15 minutes before you transfer it to your piping bag.
- To Assemble: Mount a few chopped strawberries on each cupcake. Pipe on the frosting and decorate with a slice of strawberry and lemon slice.
Looking for similar recipes? Try these..
Lemon Crepes with Tangy Lemon Glaze
Lemon and Blueberry Loaf Cake
Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Icing (eggless)
What pretty photos Radhika! You’re just getting better and better 🙂
Thank you soooo much! You made my day! ???? seriously! ??
I love them! Looks like you get lots of sunlight despite the Delhi winters! It’s the one thing I really miss when shooting my blog’s photos, a house in the opposite direction to sunlight!
I don’t! This day in particular was sooo gloomy! I had to edit them so much! Try adding exposure to your pictures, that’ll help!
Haha, they look great any which way! I’m not a huge editor myself, usually only mess around with camera settings, but so far, so good 😀 I’m going to have to try one of your eggless creations some time, I’m somehow always magnetically drawn to recipes with eggs in them and some friends have been complaining 😛
Haha I know what you mean! I love putting eggs but then I get emails and messages asking for eggless recipes, so I try to balance eggless and with egg recipes these days! 🙂
Sent your link to a friend of mine who’s a big fan of no-eggs 😀 For some reason it’s never worked very well for me but I’m determined to try again!
Thank you so much for recommending my blog! Means a lot 🙂 PS keep trying! You’ll get the hang of it. 🙂
The frosting looks amazing on these
Thank you so much Veronica! I’m in love with the frosting! 🙂
What model of oven do you use for baking?
Hi Aditi! I’m currently using Bajaj Platini but I started on a Morphy Richards. If you’re buying an oven for the first time, I would suggest you to go with either of them. 🙂
Hey
If I wish to make this frosting when fresh strawberries are not available, can I use strawberry crush in the same quantity as the strawberry purée?
Hi Akshita! I wouldn’t recommend using strawberry crush, it’s runny and won’t really go well with the recipe. You can use frozen strawberries instead 🙂
I don’t have any frozen strawberries as well:(
What about strawberry jam?
Hi Akshita, you can try using strawberry preserve instead 🙂 I haven’t tried it so I can’t really be sure, but do let me know when you give it a shot!