Recipe: Dreamsicle Cupcakes

Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.  ~Henry James


Yesterday was the first of March, which has me craving warmth and summer time Chicago.  And as a resident of  Chicago for many years I'm well aware that both might not arrive for quite some time.  So I decided to put my summer in a dessert, thus creating my version of a Dreamsicle in the form of a cupcake.  The recipe is loosely based on a lemon cupcake recipe that I found, replacing the lemon juice and lemon zest with the juice and zest of an orange.  


Ingredients: 

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of orange extract (I only had lemon, so I used this as a substitute for the citrus flavor)½ cup milk
juice of one orange (approx 2/3 cup)
zest of one orange


1. Preheat oven to 350. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
2. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. Measure out milk and vanilla.
5. Add flour mixture and milk alternatively, beginning and ending with flour mixture.
6. Mix in orange juice and orange zest.
7. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.
8. FROST!

The batter with with orange zest.

I added red & yellow food coloring to the batter.  After cooking it came out more pink than the bright orange I wanted so I would definitely add more yellow in the future. 

Frosting:
I used a basic vanilla buttercream recipe frosting like this one.  Set aside about a quarter of the plain vanilla frosting.  Add 3 tablespoons of orange juice and half a teaspoon of orange extract (again, I had to use lemon as a substitute).  After mixing the citrus flavors I added the red and yellow food coloring for the bright orange look of the Dreamsicle. 


The finished product: 

Yum!

Cupcake Exposed.

The finished product was good, very sweet and very citrus.  The orange flavor was not as prominent as I had hoped, but I'm looking forward to trying this recipe again with orange extract and hopefully I'll get the desired orange result.  But it's definitely a cupcake that makes me think of warm summer days :)