sweet clementines cupcakes & clementine buttercream icing!
Why I Love This Recipe
i love to try new fun adventures in cupcake making and winter time means there is not much fresh fruit to play with, but it IS clementine season! you can get an entire box of these beauties for about $4, so i wanted to experiment. i was inspired by wishingonclovers' recipe and made some adaptations and then made up a clementine buttercream to tie the flavor in.
Ingredients You'll Need
cupcakes:
zest of 3 clementines
juice of 3 clementines
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter (8 tablespoons)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk
1 cup sugar
clementine buttercream icing:
1 stick of butter, softened (8 tablespoons)
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon clementine zest (about one clementine)
juice of about 2-4 cementines
Directions
for the cupcakes:
preheat the oven to 350.
mix together flour, baking powder, zest and salt in a bowl.
in a separate bowl, stir together milk, vanilla, and juice, mix.
cream together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer and add the eggs. slowly add in the dry mixture and then the milk mixture.
fill your liners about 3/4 of the way full and bake for 20-25 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes clean.
let cool before frosting...
for the icing:
beat butter until light and fluffy.
slowly add the confectioners' sugar, vanilla & clementine peel.
add juice...this is the only slightly tricky part: add the juice little by little until you reach the consistencey you like for your frosting.
for a stiffer frosting, you can just add the juice of 2 clementines, but i was going for a more fluffy smooth frosting with a lot of flavor, so i added juice from about 3 1/2 clementines and it was just about right
