Stella Cupcakes

 A blogger, Apollinas.com has created a tribute to Stella McCartney's citrus fruit spring pattern with a cake. She made a citrus cake with lemon curd filling and lemon orange butter cream. Please check out the link to see her beautiful work and her adapted recipes.
I made these tasty treats and packaged them up as favors for my birthday. They were well received. :)

• To make the cake, I used a white cake mix. I added 3/4 cup of ricotta cheese and 2 tablespoons orange zest in addition to the egg whites, oil, and water the recipe already calls for. *Save those oranges for the OJ you will need for the butter cream frosting. When baking the cake, lower the temperature of your over by 25-50 degrees than the recommended temperature on the box. This will help the cupcakes rise with a flat surface instead of a hill. The hill is a harder to decorate.

• Here's the link to the lemon curd recipe I use or can use the one given by Apollinas.

• I followed her recipe for butter cream to the letter and it came out beautifully. It was creamy, buttery, and had just the right of citrus flavor. Gorgeous.

• When shopping for your fruit, pick the tiniest lemons, limes, and cuties possible. The cupcakes give you very little room for decorating. The original version of this was done on a 10 inch cake so she could have more surface area for fruit and mint. 

• If you choose to fill your cupcakes, check out this link for helpful tips. It's a little more work but makes the cupcakes much more flavorful.

I know you'll enjoy these baked, filled, and frosted gems. Perfect for summer.