Lemon Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream Frosting

Easy, made-from-scratch lemon cupcakes are divine with raspberry buttercream frosting. Garnished with fresh flowers, they're a perfect springtime treat!

Cupcakes are delicious, but I usually think of the cake as merely a vehicle for the frosting. Not this time. Lemon and raspberry is one of my favorite flavor combinations, and the light, lemon cake is the perfect complement to the raspberry buttercream frosting. If your mom is anything like mine, she'd love you to make these lemon cupcakes with raspberry buttercream frosting for Mother's Day tomorrow!

[recipe title="Lemon Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream Frosting" servings="24 cupcakes"]
INGREDIENTS:
for the cupcakes:
18 T unsalted butter, softened
2 ¼ c sugar
3 c all purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
⅜ tsp salt
9 egg whites
1 ¼ c milk
1 ½ tsp lemon extract

for the frosting:
¾ c shortening
¾ c butter
1 ½ tsp vanilla
6 c confectioner's sugar
3 T milk
¼ c seedless raspberry jam

DIRECTIONS:
for the cupcakes:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes). In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, mix egg whites, milk, and lemon extract.

Add a third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and blend, then add half of the egg mixture. Add another third of the flour mixture, then the remaining egg mixture, and finally the last of the flour mixture. Scrape the bowl often while blending the mixtures together.

Pour the batter into a muffin pan lined with baking cups and bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Cool the cupcakes in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes, then remove the cupcakes from the pan and return them to the wire rack to cool completely.

for the frosting:
Cream butter and shortening in the bowl of a large mixer. Add vanilla and mix well. Add sugar slowly - one cup at a time - beating well on medium speed and scraping the bowl often. When all sugar is added the icing will be dry. Then add milk and beat at high speed until the frosting is light and fluffy. Finally add the raspberry jam and beat until well blended.

Frost cupcakes and garnish with small fresh flowers (I chose violas!).
[/recipe]