Lemon-Filled Spring Cupcakes

So budgets are tight these days and my solution to this problem is to bake all of my presents. So when my dad's birthday came around, I knew it had to be special. He's a cake connoisseur after all.


What's more, I thought the best way to go about baking would be to have a party. So I invited some besties, threw on a few movies, opened up a bottle of wine and got to baking.


First I admit I totally cheated and used boxed cupcake mix. I used a "springtime" funfetti mix, so the colors were more muted. And I hollowed them out for the important, homemade stuff to come.

  
Then I decided I would try my hand at making lemon curd. Lemon juice, zest, sugar, butter and eggs... how hard can it be? Well apparently pretty hard when you add the butter in at the wrong time! So I scrapped that batch and went for round two. All in all, it turned out great. 

I let this chill overnight, so I actually didn't do the filling until the "afterparty" I held alone the next day. But they looked pretty good when it was all done.

Then I made some homemade cream cheese frosting with some lemon juice and lemon curd thrown in for extra taste.

I had a brand new little pastry bag set, bought for me by the amazing John, but my untrained hand only made a semi-professional looking cupcake. Still I don't think they looked too bad if you asked me.

Everyone who ate these said they were amazing. My comment, is that the cake needs to have a bit more flavor to combat the tartness of the lemon curd. But for a first effort, I'm pretty proud. Thanks to mykitchenaddiction for the lemon curd recipe, and mybakingaddiction for the frosting recipe that I adapted a bit to make my own.