Celebrating!

Today's delicious goodies were made in honor of a wonderful co-worker for her birthday. Before I continue further, I know this week has been full of baked goodies, but my blog is not suppose to be entirely about cooking or baking. I'm sorry if I am boring some of you but it is what my week has consisted a lot of and that is my purpose to share a daily look into my little corner of the world. However, on that note, my coworker just handed me a huge bag of lemons from her tree so you might see quite a few recipes using lemons. I'm thinking lemon meringue pie, lemon bars, any suggestions for baked lemons goods are encouraged :-) Ok back to the recipe.

These are key lime cupcakes with whipped cream frosting. How delicious does that sound! 

The first step in making these oh so yummy cupcakes is to make the key lime curd, it is best if you make it a day ahead of time so the curd can have time to cool and chill. For the curd, you need 1 can of sweetened condensed milk (although you will only be using 4 tablespoons), 4 egg yolks, 8 tablespoons of white sugar, 8 tablespoons of butter, 8 teaspoons of key lime juice( if you can get juice from freshly squeezed key limes that is preferred, but bottled will work just fine) and 2 teaspoons of key lime zest. I just happen to find actual key lime at my local Fresh and Easy grocery store, it was a bag for only 98 cents, amazing! Key limes are smaller than the usual limes you find in the grocery store, and the larger limes called Persian or Tahiti limes will work out to but if you can buy the key limes, just go for it!

In a saucepan, put the 4 egg yolks, 8 tablespoons of sugar, and 8 teaspoons of key lime juice. Whisk the ingredients together and cook it on a low heat ( you don't want the yolks to cook too fast) until thickened. 

Then take the saucepan off the burner, add the 8 tablespoons of butter, 4 tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk and the lime zest. Stir until the ingredients are combined and the butter is melted. Allow the curd to cool and then chill it in the refrigerator covered until you are ready to bake the cupcakes. Sorry I don't have any photos of these steps, my camera battery died and needed to be recharged :-(

For the cupcakes, I used a vanilla cake box mix (eck, that is terrible I know, I make everything from scratch but I felt ok about it just this once), 3 eggs, 1 cup half and half. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Then mix all these cupcake ingredients together in your mixer.

In your muffin tin, put the cupcake liner then fill each liner about 3/4 full with cupcake batter. 

Bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes and to test the doneness either stick a toothpick in one of them and if the toothpick comes out clean then it is done. Or you can do the spring back test, when you lightly touch one of the cupcakes and it springs back then it is done! Let your cupcakes cool and wash your mixer out to make the whipped cream. 

While you are letting them cool, look at this cute picture I caught of Kip trying to get a cupcake :-)

For the whipped cream, you need 2 cups of heaving whipping cream and 1/4-1/2 cup of powdered sugar. Pour the whipping cream into the mixer and whip it until soft peaks form. Then add the powdered sugar, use more powdered sugar if you a stiffer frosting, which will be easier to frost the cupcakes. Then you are ready to assemble the key lime cupcakes.

Using a knife cut a small cone of the center of the cupcake, but don't cut all the way down to the bottom.

As you can see I put the key lime curd in a pastry bag. If you don't have a pastry bag you can get a plastic bag and cut part of the corner. Fill the cupcakes with the curd. 

Then put the whipped cream in another pastry bag and frost the top of the cupcakes. I decorated my cupcakes with a slice of key lime, but you can leave it plain or sprinkle some shredded coconut on top if you would like and want some more tropical flair!

If you bake these, please let me know how yours turned out, I would love to know!