Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Lemon Buttercream

Sometimes, I forget why I love baking.

I get so caught up in all the hustle and bustle of the day that I just...forget. I forget what butter and sugar look like mixed together. I forget what it's like to feel dough kneaded between my fingers. I forget what it's like to spread homemade icing on a cake, or pressing down buttery delicious graham cracker crumbs into a springform pan. I forget the heat of the oven, the smell of freshly baked cinnamon apple muffins, the first bite into a homemade cookie...

I forget all of the things that are so important to me. That keep me calm, balanced, and happy.

Baking has always been my get-away vacation from the norm. It's time I spend alone in a kitchen with nothing but frantic ideas. It's relaxing, for the most part. And even when it's not -- even when you take a task on so great that you end up curled into a ball on the kitchen floor with icing in your hair and a mess on the counters... you still feel like you conquered the world once that awesome dessert you spent 5 hours to perfect is on your table ready to be served, its demanding presence drawing everyone in.

They ooh, and ahh, and smile, and become happy with each bite. Therefore, making you happy in the process. Because not only did you totally kick that recipes BUTT, but you made people smile and forget their problems.

Baking is a gift. And I need to find more time in my life to do it.

That's why I forced myself in the kitchen yesterday. Though I dreaded the pile of dishes that would follow, I proceeded with confidence. I thought up a recipe. I mixed it all together. I baked them at 350F. And then I frosted them.

Thus, the birth of Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Lemon Buttercream.

And despite the natural light outside not doing well for my little starter DSLR, I went ahead and posted anyway.

'Cause honestly? These cupcakes could make anyones day ten times better.

I've never actually used real vanilla bean in a recipe before, so I was excited when I did for this one. I practically jumped around the room, showing everyone my vanilla bean.

I must've sounded like some kind of Ina Garten obsessed freakshow.

"Look! LOOK! It's a VANILLA BEAN. A REAL VANILLA BEAN! Oh my God. It's the pod and everything! Holy crap! I've only seen this on the teevee!"

Sadly, no one seemed as enthralled by it as I was.

Whatever. Don't judge me.

Anyway, I'm glad I mixed this into the buttercream. It added a fantastic vanilla flavor that I just loved. I used just a little bit of lemon, not enough to overpower it. I didn't want to get rid of that vanilla bean flavor. But you can definitely taste undertones of it. And when your teeth hit the perfect, fluffy vanilla cupcake underneath, you will be in spring HEAVEN.

It's really great to make for any spring-time get together, for church or just for friends coming over for a bit. I highly recommend eating it outside with a pitcher of lemonade while it's nice and sunny...preferably by a pool :) (If you don't have a pool, that's ok -- i'm sure those weird neighbors across the street wont mind you using theirs.)

Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Lemon Buttercream

INGREDIENTS:

Vanilla Cupcakes
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 stick butter (8tbsp), room temperature (VERY important!)
1 egg
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup sour cream or full-fat yogurt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Vanilla Bean Lemon Buttercream
1 vanilla bean
1 large lemon (or 2 small)
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 sticks butter (16tbsp), room temperature
3-4 cups powdered sugar

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Place cupcake liners in a 12pc cupcake pan or spray with nonstick spray or bakers spray.

2. In an electric mixer with a paddle attachment (or hand mixer), combine the flour, sugar and baking powder together. Add in the butter, eggs, vanilla, and sour cream/yogurt, and mix for 30 seconds (or 1 minute for hand mixer) until the dough is smooth with no clumps, making sure to scrape down the sides.

3. Disperse batter evenly into cupcake pan. Place in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes or until tops are pale golden and a toothpick through the middle cupcake comes out clean. Once done, leave to cool on a wire wrack.

4. Meanwhile, make the frosting. To a bowl, add the butter, vanilla extract, the zest of 1 large lemon, and the juice of the same lemon. Mix together briefly to combine. Using a sharp knife, cut down the middle of the vanilla bean and scrape the beans inside out and into the mixing bowl. Mix again until the beans are incorporated into the butter. Add 3-4 cups gradually to the bowl until your frosting has the consistency you like, checking for taste after each addition (make sure it's not TOO sweet!)

5. Once cupcakes are cooled COMPLETELY, frost cupcakes as you desire (I just swirled them on with a knife... I'm simple.)

Lemon Bars with Crumble Topping

Have you ever gone to a cafe', or a bakery, or just any eatery in general and saw one of their perfect looking desserts behind the glass display and thought to yourself, "oh my gosh, I HAVE to try THAT"? Then you get all excited, thinking of what it will taste like, how someone could come up with it, how you totally should spend that $2 dollar price tag for it on something that matters like AA batteries for your camera, and how darn cute it looks all nicely presented amongst the other desserts. You savor the moment when you ring it up, sit down, take a quick sip of your freshly brewed coffee and finally, you dig into your 2 dollar treat without skepticism.

And for a brief moment there is a quiet line between the excitement, and then the disappointment that follows.

You get mad. You bite your cheek. You stare at it and say, "that's...not what I expected" and you push your plate away and ask if someone else wants it. For the rest of that evening, you are sad and let down that you didn't get what you expected or wanted. And then your husband/boyfriend/best friend/girl friend/family member is all like, "OH MY GOSH THIS IS DELICIOUS" and you stare at the dessert being gobbled up with longing eyes until you collapse in a pit of tears and shake your fist at the dessert Gods for doing this awful thing to you and making you waste 2 dollars and now you can't buy the camera batteries and everything is ruined forever.

Orrrrrrr... maybe that's just me who does that.



Seriously, though, I think we've all had that happen to us once. As you can probably tell, it happened to me recently. I had seen a "lemon crumble bar" in the display of the cafe' I regularly go to on my break. I've tried most of their desserts already but this one in particular stood out to me because not once had I ever considered a lemon bar with a crumbled topping before. Sure, you have your raspberry oatmeal bars with the oatmeal streusal on top, and your muffins with a brown sugar crumble... but lemon bars? I never considered. Never thought about it. So I was both deathly curious and excited to try it.

Except, when I did, the lemon bar didn't taste good at all. It tasted like biting into chewy, not crumbly, shortbread, with a dry, not sweet at all topping, and a very dense lemon custard in the middle. Even the lemon flavor was not very prominent. I could taste no sign of a zest or anything like that. And after baking many lemon bars before, I could not understand why this one tasted nothing like the ones I had made or eaten previously. Disappointed, I gave the rest to a co-worker that loved it and said I was crazy.

I may be crazy, but that lemon bar wasn't lovely at all. And I was not about to sit there in wonder about what it could have tasted like. I was going to find out. And I did.


Besides the caramelized crust due to a little too much time in the oven, this lemon bar was exactly what I was expecting, and more. Prominent lemon taste, with lemon zest in the shortbread crumble on top. Simple ingredients. Easy to make. And worth the time to go make it myself. I was really happy with the results of the topping with the lemon bar. Totally balanced each other out, and a small slice is more than satisfying. Not too sweet or too tart. I was tempted to go back into the cafe' with this tart and let them sell this instead. But then that might not be the best idea in the world.

It may be a good lemon bar but I don't think it warrants banishment from coffee. Actually, I don't think anything is worth banishment from coffee.

Word.
Lemon Bars with Crumble Topping

Shortbread Base Ingredients:
1 cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon icing sugar or powdered sugar
1 stick of cold butter

Lemon Filling:
2 large eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup FRESH lemon juice (no bottled stuff here, people!)
1 tsp lemon zest (zest of two small lemons)

Crumble Topping:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
zest of one small lemon
4 tablespoons butter, softened
powdered sugar (optional)

Directions:
1. Preheat your oven to 350F. Then, make the shortbread base. Whisk flour and powdered sugar together until combined. Using a pastry cutter (or your fingers), add the cold butter in by small amounts until the dough is crumbly. Press into a greased 8 or 9in. tart pan. Poke the crust with a fork all over.

2. Place crust into oven for 15 minutes or until a pale golden. Leave on a cooling rack to cool.

3. To make the lemon filling, mix the eggs together until frothy with a handmixer or kitchenaid. Add the sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Pour into cooled shortbread crust. Bake for around 18 minutes.

4. While the filling is baking, make the crumble topping. Combine the sugar and lemon zest together first to let the sugar draw out the flavors of the zest. You can do this by pinching the sugar and zest together with your fingers until the sugar is lemony and fragrant. Add in the flour, whisk to combine. Add in the butter until your dough resembles a crumbly mixture.

5. After 18 minutes have passed, take the lemon bars out and sprinkle the crumble evenly over it. Return back to the oven and bake for an additional 5-8 minutes.

6. Once your topping is slightly golden, take the lemon bars out to cool. Sift powdered sugar over it before serving. Store in refrigerator or at room temperature (I like mine cold from the fridge).

Lemon-Cornmeal Cookies

I never thought that anyone would have to teach me the "proper" way to slice a lemon. Infact, I didn't even think twice when the servers from restaraunts would come over and bring me my tea/water with a dainty little lemon slice perfectly placed upon the rim of my glass. It was almost like I just assumed they came that way. Like somewhere there was a lemon tree with presliced lemons or something. Okay, maybe that's going a bit out there... but really, I never even once considered that the people inside the kitchen actually sliced the lemons themselves. Or that there was a certain way you had to do it.

Until I became one of those servers and was told by my manager to go slice lemons for tea. At first I thought, "okay, whatever, slicing lemons... not that hard" and as I washed the lemons clean and placed them on a cutting board to slice, I sliced them right down the middle (first mistake) and then tried awkwardly slicing them in strips.

In other words, I had no idea what the heck I was doing.



Thankfully for me there was a nice man who saved me, though I still got a wild look from my manager later on when she walked in and saw me being taught how to slice a lemon ("you don't know how to slice a lemon!?") as if it was the most simple thing in the world. And now that I know how to do it, I realize that it probably is. Given the fact that you have common sense. Something I seem to lack in these situations.

Anywho, he taught me how to properly slice the lemons WITHOUT the danger of cutting off my fingers. He told me the trick is to hold the knife a certain way in which the blade rests against your fingertips as you move along slicing, therefore if you slip up accidentally the risk of you havings stubs for fingers is scarce. I wanted to give the man a hug, but I refrained, and kept slicing lemons. Soon I got them to be just like those dainty little slices you find on your glass.

I felt like a lemon-slicing pro. Like I could take on the world. Just the lemons, knife, and I. No tea anywhere would be without us.

Or, I guess, in this case, cookie.

Originally this recipe says to only use lemon zest, but I took the suggestion of the reviewers and added a nice little squeeze of fresh lemon juice to the batter. The difference? W-h-o-a! I can't even imagine what these cookies may have tasted like without the extra zip of juice, seeing as the cookies themselves were only lightly lemony tasting. Like a lemon bar in a crisp, very chewy cookie form.

One thing about them though is that they do, and will dry out, if kept at room temperature for too long. That, and if you leave these in your oven for too long, they can crisp up and burn real fast. So make sure you keep an eye on them. Especially if your oven tends to burn cookies. If you're super paranoid about it though, you can always put the cookie dough in the freezer a few minutes before popping it into the oven. This will help prevent burning, but it may also make your cookies "puff up" rather than spread.



These are delicious with a nice cup of espresso or just on their own as a light snack. The cornmeal especially gives them a distinct texture that I love. Give 'em a try. I don't think you'll be disappointed. Just don't skimp on the juice!

Lemon Cornmeal Cookies
(Adapted from Cooking Light)

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup all-purpose flour (about 4 1/2 ounces)
1/3 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons butter, softened
1 large egg
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
2 tsp or 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.

2. Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup, and level with a knife. Combine flour and the next 4 ingredients (through ground ginger); stir with a whisk. Combine sugar and butter in a large bowl, and beat with a mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes). Scrape sides of the bowl occasionally. Add egg; beat well. Beat in grated lemon rind. Add flour mixture to butter mixture, and beat at medium-low speed just until blended.

3. Spoon about 1 1/2 teaspoons batter 2 inches apart onto 2 parchment-lined baking sheets. (Note*: I rolled mine into 1 1/2 teaspoon balls with damp hands to keep from sticking, then sprinkled the cookies with a generous amount of granulated sugar, patting the cookies down very lightly before baking to get a more even spread and a crisp sugar coating). Bake at 350° for 12 minutes or until lightly browned underneath, almost firm around the edges but still slightly underbaked in the middle. Remove from oven. Cool on pans for 1-2 minutes or until firm. Remove from pans. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Yields 30 cookies.