Key Lime Cupcakes

My son loves anything green. He also loves the lime taste. These are his FAVORITE cupcakes. I could probably call them triple lime cupcakes. The cake is lime, the filling is lime, the icing is lime! My inspiration for these, other than my son, was this Betty Crocker recipe. I took the filling recipe straight from their page. I used a white cake mix (with lime juice in place of water) and my own icing recipe.

Key Lime Cupcakes (and my favorite lime juice)

Ingredients:

Cake:

This is what I used
Vanilla Cake Mix
Lime Juice
Eggs
Oil

Filling:

1 box (4 serving size) Vanilla pudding mix (you might use Lemon for more citrusy flavor)
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup Key Lime Juice
4 drops green food coloring
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Frosting:

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening (I use Butter Flavor Crisco)
4 cups powdered sugar (more if you need it)
2 TBSP Key Lime Juice
(I doubled my recipe for frosting because I like a lot on my cupcakes and any I have left over I will use on another recipe)



Step 1: Find your favorite cake mix (you might even start with a lemon mix for an even bigger citrus flavor).

Step 2: Prepare it according to your package directions (I used 1 cup of lime juice in place of the water. I will be honest, the batter looked just a bit different. I don't know if the acid in the lime juice made the consistency different, but it still baked up nicely).

Step 3: Bake according to package directions ( I used my favorite Reynolds cupcake liners and I got 18 cupcakes out of my mix).

Step 4: While letting the cupcakes cool (or while they are baking), prepare the filling. (The first time I made this recipe, I just threw everything into the bowl and beat it with the mixer. The mixture was quite yummy. I followed the directions exactly this time. There is a slight difference to the texture, but I wouldn't stress about getting it exactly right.)

1. Whisk pudding mix and heavy cream
2. Add Lime Juice and food coloring, blend well
3. Stir in powdered sugar
4. Refrigerate until you are ready to fill your cupcakes

Yummy filling!

Step 5: Cut a hole in the cupcakes. I have a handy little tool that I like to use. You can also use a knife or any other very small cookie cutter. If you don't want to cut a hole, you can use a bismark tip (Wilton tip #230) and place the tip inside the cupcake and fill.

My cute little cutting tool

This is what it looks like after

Step 6: Fill your cupcakes.

This is the Bismark tip but you could use any tip

Step 7:Make your icing

1. Blend butter and shortening.
2. Add powdered sugar, slowly
3. Add in the lime juice
4. Add a few drops of green food coloring, if desired

Step 8: Decorate those cupcakes. (I used a Wilton tip # 4B today)

My son's favorite cupcake!!!!

I had quite a bit of the filling leftover. I am trying to find a way I can use it. It might be nice sandwiched between some graham crackers for a key lime pie cookie. The icing that I have leftover will go nicely with a cupcake idea I have coming up. Depending on the citrus level you are wanting, you can start with a lemon cake mix and lemon pudding (for the filling), or you could remove any of the lime taste if all you wanted was a hint of lime.