Lemonade Cupcakes

These moist and soft Lemonade Cupcakes are the perfect lemony dessert. We love them anytime, but especially in spring and summer when are cravings for light and fruity cakes are highest!

Why we love them

• Simple to make
• Light and fruity with a hint of tartness
• Great for birthday desserts, shower cupcakes, or just because!

How to Make Lemonade Cupcakes

You can find the full, printable recipe card further down in this post. Here is a quick look at our steps!

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour three 8 inch pans. We like to line the bottom of our pans with circles of parchment paper.
• Dry Ingredients: In a medium bowl, whisk the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt for 30 seconds and set aside.
• Wet Ingredients: In another bowl, combine the sour cream, vegetable oil, ½ cup concentrated lemonade (thawed), lemon extract, and lemon zest. Set aside.
• In the bowl of your mixer, add the softened butter and mix at medium speed until smooth.
• Gradually add the sugar and continue to mix on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes until lightened in color and fluffy.
• Add the room temperature eggs one at a time, mixing until the yellow of the yolk disappears. If using Yellow Coloring Gel, you can add it now or any time during the mixing process.
• With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and the lemonade mixture, beginning and ending with the lemonade mixture (We did 3 additions of the dry mixture, 2 additions of wet). Slightly increase the mixer speed just until combined.

• Scoop about ¼ cup bake batter into each cupcake liner (in the cupcake pans)
• Bake at 350 degrees for 14-16 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just few crumbs attached.
• Baking times can vary depending on pan & oven- check at 14 minutes to be on the safe side, but it may take a few minutes more.

• We like to remove cupcakes immediately from the pans to prevent over-baking, and allow them to cool on a wire rack if you have one.
• This recipe makes approximately 7 cups of batter-- enough for about 30 cupcakes.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

We frosted our cupcakes with a simple and delicious Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting. It combines softened butter and softened cream cheese, powdered sugar, a pinch of salt, and lemon flavor from lemon extract and lemon juice or lemonade concentrate.

Just as with most of our cream cheese frostings, this frosting is a bit soft. If at any time you need to firm things up, just pop it in the refrigerator, along with your piping bag, for a few minutes as needed.

Decorating the Cupcakes

Once the cupcakes have cooled completely, decorate however you'd like! We used a star piping tip 21 to decorate our cupcakes. (You can find more ideas for decorating with a star tip in our star tip piping tutorial as well as our cupcake decorating tutorial!)

More Lemon Cakes

We've made several lemon cakes and cupcakes over the years! Some of our favorites are our Lemon Cake from Scratch, Lemon Velvet Cake, Lemon Coconut Cupcakes, and Lemon Cake from Cake Mix.

We also have a great Lemonade Layer Cake (which uses cream cheese in the cake batter rather than sour cream.)

Thanks so much for stopping by today! We hope that you enjoy these Lemonade Cupcakes as much as we have. Make sure to check out our full collection of cake recipes as well as cake decorating tutorials!

Lemonade Cupcakes

BY Melissa and Bebe

These moist and soft Lemonade Cupcakes have delicious lemon flavor and are swirled with lemon cream cheese frosting.

Prep Time: 20 minutes mins

Cook Time: 15 minutes mins

Course: Dessert

Servings: 30 cupcakes

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Ingredients

• ▢ 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, softened (168g) unsalted butter, softened
• ▢ 2 cups sugar (400g)
• ▢ 4 large eggs, room temperature (to save time you can warm them in a bowl of very warm water for 5 min)
• ▢ 3 cups cake flour (342g)
• ▢ 2 teaspoons baking powder (8g)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon baking soda (3g)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt (3g)
• ▢ ½ cup concentrated lemonade, thawed (frozen concentrated lemonade, thawed- we used Minute Maid Brand),
• ▢ 1 cup sour cream (242g)(we use full fat)
• ▢ ¼ cup vegetable oil (we used canola oil) (54g)
• ▢ Lemon Zest from one lemon (Optional)
• ▢ 2 teaspoons Lemon Extract (We used McCormick Brand.)
• ▢ Yellow Coloring Gel for desired shade of yellow (Optional)

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

• ▢ 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened (226g)
• ▢ 16 oz cream cheese (We used two 8 oz packages cream cheese, full fat)
• ▢ 1 teaspoon lemon extract- adjust amount to your liking (4g)
• ▢ 2 teaspoons lemon juice (or lemonade concentrate) (8g)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt (2g)
• ▢ 6-6½ cups Powdered Sugar (690g-747g) adjust up or down slightly to your liking.
• ▢ Yellow Coloring Gel Optional. We used a very small amount for tinting.

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Add cupcake liners to cupcake pan(s).
• In a medium bowl, whisk the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt for 30 seconds and set aside.
• In another bowl, combine the sour cream, vegetable oil, ½ cup concentrated lemonade (thawed), lemon extract, and lemon zest. Set aside.
• In the bowl of your mixer, add the softened butter and mix at medium speed until smooth.
• Gradually add the sugar and continue to mix on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes until lightened in color and fluffy.
• Add the room temperature eggs one at a time, mixing until the yellow of the yolk disappears. If using Yellow Coloring Gel, you can add it now or any time during the mixing process.
• With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and the lemonade mixture, beginning and ending with the lemonade mixture (We did 3 additions of the dry mixture, 2 additions of wet). Slightly increase the mixer speed just until combined.
• Scoop about ¼ cup bake batter into each cupcake liner (in the cupcake pans)
• Bake at 350 degrees for 14-16 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just few crumbs attached. We like to remove cupcakes immediately from the pans to prevent over-baking. Baking times can vary depending on pan & oven- check at 14 minutes to be on the safe side, but it may take a few minutes more.
• This recipe makes approximately 7 cups of batter-- approximately 28-30 cupcakes.

For the Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

• Mix the softened butter on low to medium speed until softened and smooth.
• Add the softened cream cheese to the butter, mixing at low to medium speed until smooth and well combined.
• Add the lemon flavoring and/or lemonade concentrate. Gradually add the powdered sugar, mixing on low speed until blended. Add coloring gel if you are tinting the frosting.
• Continue to mix on low to medium speed until well combined and smooth.
• Store in the refrigerator. If making the frosting in advance, allow to sit on the kitchen counter until it comes closer to room temperature. You may need to remix.

Assembly

• Once the cupcakes have cooled, decorate however you like! You can use an offset spatula to apply the frosting or you can pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes using your piping tips of choice. We used a star tip 21.

Refrigeration

• Because of the cream cheese frosting, these lemonade cupcakes need to be refrigerated in an airtight container or under a cake dome. However, for the very best flavor and texture, it is important to remove the cupcakes from the refrigerator a couple of hours before serving. This will allow plenty of time for the cupcakes to warm and soften.

Notes

Substitution for Cake Flour: (Using all purpose flour (plain in UK) to make Cake Flour)

For each cup of flour in a recipe, remove 2 Tablespoons of flour and replace with 2 Tablespoons cornstarch (cornflour in the UK). This recipe has 3 cups of flour so you will measure out 3 cups of all purpose flour, remove 6 Tablespoons and replace with 6 Tablespoons cornstarch, whisk to blend

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