Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes

Bright, sunshine sweet lemon blueberry cupcakes. These beautiful cupcakes are infused with lemon with swirls of blueberry, then topped with a vanilla blueberry swirled buttercream frosting. 

Lemon and blueberry is definitely one of my favorite flavor combinations. The bright flavors of the lemon brings out the blueberries and reminds me of everything I love about warmer weather. Now, I know we aren’t anywhere near warm weather just yet, but I am taking a little trip to springtime and the warm glow of the sun to help me get over this cold I can’t seem to shake. So these lemon blueberry cupcakes are basically therapeutic. So it’s okay that I had two (and a half) of them.

After my blackberry lime cupcakes, I thought it would be a delicious way to showcase these two flavors. Instead of making it exactly the same, I instead mixed the blueberry syrup in some of the frosting to create a delicate swirled effect which is so perfect for spring.

You can use any lemons you have available, but I loved using Meyer lemons in these lemon blueberry cupcakes. They add a bright, floral note to the cupcakes which really drive home the feeling of spring. (You getting how desperate I am for some spring in my life now?). It is also sweeter than the regular lemons you find which works well here in these cupcakes.

Can we also take a minute to adore the swirls a bit more here? I never did much swirling of colors in my buttercream and I was so nervous that it wouldn’t turn out. To make it, I divided about a third of the frosting before I added the heavy cream to it. The third I took out, I slowly added blueberry syrup until I got the color I wanted. It isn’t a serious blueberry flavor… I was mostly interested in getting a really delicate color that wasn’t too bold, but I used bits of mashed blueberry to add flecks to showcase its freshness. I then just started randomly adding spoonfuls of the blueberry frosting in with the regular frosting into the piping bag in hope that it would add bits of the blueberry hue randomly as I piped the frosting. It came out even better than I imagined it would.

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Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes

Prep 35 mins

Cook 25 mins

Inactive 20 mins

Total 1 hour, 20 mins

Author Amanda Powell

Yield 12 cupcakes

Fluffy lemon cupcakes with swirls of blueberry syrup topped with lemon frosting with a blueberry swirl

Ingredients

For the Blueberry Sauce

• 2/3 cups blueberries
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• pinch of salt

For the Cupcakes

• 1 ½ cups cake flour (can also use unbleached all-purpose flour)
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup  unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• zest of two lemons
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
• ½ cup buttermilk, room temperature
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 12 teaspoons bluberry sauce

For the Frosting

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• pinch of salt
• zest of half a lemon
• 1 - 2 tablespoons blueberry sauce
• 2 - 3 tablespoons heavy cream

Instructions

Make the blueberry sauce. Add the ingredients for the sauce to a small saucepan and heat to medium-high. Lightly mash and continue to cook until the liquid forms a thick syrup. Set aside to cool.

While the sauce is cooling, start the cupcakes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line the cupcake tin with liners. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt together and set aside.

In a mixer, add the butter, sugar, and lemon zest and beat until light and fluffy - about 4 - 5 minutes.

Beat in the eggs one at a time. Make sure you beat well after you add each egg. Beat in the vanilla.

Mix together the buttermilk and lemon juice.

Alternate between adding the flour (in three additions) and the buttermilk/lemon mixture (in two additions). Stir until just combined.

Fill the cupcake liners with the batter so that it is about 2/3 full. Add a teaspoon of the blueberry sauce to the batter and use a toothpick to swirl.

Bake for 15 - 18 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature.

Make the frosting. Beat the butter until it is smooth and creamy. Add the lemon zest then the powdered sugar one cup at a time, beating well between each addition. The mixture may seem crumbly, that is okay.

Separate about 1/3 of the frosting and place in a small bowl. Mix in a bit of the blueberry sauce until it forms a light purple color. Set aside.

Add the heavy cream to the remaining 2/3 of frosting until it reaches your desired consistency - it should be about the same consistency as the blueberry portion.

Fit a piping bag with your desired piping tip. Begin adding both frostings, using mostly the lemon frosting with spoonfuls of the blueberry frosting added in sporadically.

Pipe the frosting over the cupcakes and garnish as desired!

Courses Dessert

Cuisine American