Cherry Limeade, in a Cupcake

It is a cold and dreary day today. I have soup in the crock pot and bread rising. Honestly, I really like wintery days. I decided though, that since I had a little icing leftover from a previous cupcake recipe, I needed to bring a little summertime sunshine to the table. In my family, we LOVE cherry limeades, especially from Sonic. Since I am currently CONSUMED WITH CUPCAKES, maybe I should turn that lovely flavor into a cupcake.

Cherry Limeade, in a cupcake

For this cupcake, I followed my standard method: I started with a cake mix. This time I used a Betty Crocker Cherry Chip cake mix. I had a jar of cherries that I drained so I could use them as a decoration on top of the cupcake. The drained syrupy cherry juice is what I used for the water in the cake mix. I decided to do something fun with my cupcakes too. My mom had bought me some silicone heart shaped baking cups. I thought it might be cute to do a cupcake in that too. There is a little fill line in them and that helps too.

After cooling my cupcakes, I need to frost them. I used my Wilton #1M tip and my leftover lime icing that I made in a previous blog here.

Heart Shaped cupcake

After putting the frosting on, I then put the cherry on top. I would suggest either letting the cherries dry on paper towels a bit, or waiting until the last minute to put the cherries on top. Some of the liquid might eek out onto the frosting. It might be pretty, but I would rather be safe :)

My overall thoughts on this cupcake: It looked very nice. It was easy to do. I would love to have MORE cherry flavor in the cupcake. It is a very delicate cherry flavor that is almost overpowered by the lime icing. I am sure I will make this one again, but if anyone has any ideas for upping the cherry flavor, please let me know. I am not certain if there is a "cherry extract" I actually looked, but did not see one in my local grocery store. I might do a cherry puree that might make it a bit stronger. I would love to know if someone tries this and what they think of it. I still like this cupcake, even without a strong cherry flavor.

Summertime on a Wintry Day :)

*****I talked to my mom after I posted this and she gave me some great ideas. She said the McCormick does make a cherry extract, that is a bonus. In our discussing, we came to the conclusion that I could do a Cherry Limeade, Part 2 by taking the cupcake and filling from my Key Lime cupcakes (I linked it earlier in this post) and making a cherry icing. I will try that one, too. Thanks, Mom!!!*********

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.