Southern Sweet Tea Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream Recipe

(Originally posted to my main blog 7/4/14)
Made these yummy cupcakes with my daughter Julia today :) Recipe below.

 

SOUTHERN SWEET TEA CUPCAKES - makes 24 cupcakes

 

1 cup whole milk

10 black tea bags
3 1/3 cups plus 1/2 tbsp  Cake flour
2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup canola oil (or veg oil)
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 eggs
Pinch of lemon zest

 

 

Preheat oven to 350

Heat the milk in the microwave for 1 minute. Stir

and heat for another 30 seconds. Add teabags to

milk and allow to steep for at least half an hour

until it's nice and strong.

 

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. In

the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a

paddle attachment, mix the granulated sugar, oil,

vanilla and the eggs, 1 at a time until fluffy.

 

Alternate adding the flour and most the tea until

incorporated. * Add a pinch of lemon zest and

incorporate.

 

Fill the cupcake liners and bake for 15 - 18

minutes.  Allow to cool completely before

frosting with lemon buttercream.

 

*After removing tea bags you will have a little

less than 1 cup.  Add as much as you feel you

need for batter to be correct consistency. 

Batter will be thin and runny.  I added approx 3/4

cup

 

TIP: I wanted a really strong tea taste so I

added approx 2 tbsp of ready made sweet tea

(Arizona brand) and a few squirts of MIO Sweet

Tea drink flavoring. You could also use ice tea

mix crystals, Crystal Light or any other

flavoring you choose to bump up the flavor, but

don't skip out on the genuine tea in the milk. That

gives it the genuine tea flavor and smell.

 

 

LEMON BUTTERCREAM ICING

 

1 cup of salted butter

4 cups of icing sugar

2 tablespoons lemon zest

3 tablespoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons heavy cream or milk

Whip butter with mixer until fluffy

 

add sugar 1 cup at a time

 

add zest and add lemon juice to taste (I used

zest of whole lemon and juice of 1/2)

 

add cream to thin

 

beat until light and fluffy

 

We decorated them with straws and lemon jelly candies.

Other tips:  I don't have a zester so I used the fine edge of a cheese grater and got the zest off with a pastry brush (because it's damp it will stick to the grater). Also, when squeezing the lemon to get the fresh lemon juice, cut the lemon in half and wrap a piece of clean paper towel around the lemon. The juice will come out, but the pulp and seeds will stay behind the paper towel.

A lot of times flavors will bake out of cakes so what might seem like a good amount of flavor in batter might be missing when it's baked. You want to make sure it tastes strong of tea before baking or you'll have a nice tasting cake - but it won't really taste like sweet tea.