Lemon Cupcakes made with bakery emulsions

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Lemon Cupcakes 

are all the rage this summer!

After hearing/seeing about them on so many blogs

I was really getting a hankering for some!

A cool and refreshing cupcake!

And then my friend PinkCakePlate posted on Instagram

 that she had found baking emulsions at Ross

 for half the regular price.

I had never heard of baking emulsions

but it definitely sounded like something special!

So I had to check it out!!

I found these flavors

(at two different Ross locations)

I'M.  A.  FAN!

In the process of figuring out how to use these emulsions in baking

I discovered a couple of things.

Like...baking extracts are alcohol based 

and the flavor is diminished when heated (baked), 

but emulsions are alcohol-free

and have a more potent and robust flavor.

Like...professional bakers almost exclusively

 use emulsions over extracts.

Like...an emulsion is a mixture of two ingredients that normally can't be combined.

Like water and oil, for example.

(mayonnaise is an emulsion...it's mainly water and oil,

 then eggs are used to bind the two together).

Yeah, yeah, yeah......that's all interesting and stuff,

but what you really want is the recipe, right?

I took a basic recipe and tweaked it to make it my own

Emulsion Lemon Cupcakes

2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

Mix dry ingredients in a medium bowl and set aside.

In separate bowl mix:

1 cup real butter

3 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 cup buttermilk 

(see below for my buttermilk substitute)

3 TB lemon zest OR 2 TB Lemon Bakery Emulsion

3 TB lemon juice

After mixing the butter/egg/sugar mixture well, 

slowly add the dry ingredient mixture and whip for a couple of minutes.

Fill adorable cupcake liners.

Bake 350 for 15 minutes.

Let cool, then frost.

BUTTERMILK SUBSTITUTE:

This is a dry powder that I keep plentifully in my pantry,

because I never know when I might suddenly need buttermilk

and I can mix up the exact amount I need.

If using buttermilk powder then I add the powder to my dry ingredient mixture

and the necessary reconstituting liquid to my wet ingredients

(sometimes I use 2% milk instead of water to reconstitute...extra rich).

Buttermilk powder can be found in your grocer's baking aisle

 by the regular powdered milk.

Lemon Buttercreamcheese Frosting

3 1/2 + cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup butter (1 stick) softened

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla OR 1 tsp Butter Vanilla Bakery Emulsion

1 TB lemon zest OR 1 TB Lemon Bakery Emulsion

2 TB lemon juice

Mix butter, zest, cream cheese and vanilla 

OR 

butter, cream cheese and emulsions.

Add milk.

Mix in powdered sugar, a cup at a time. 

Mix in lemon juice.

Beat on high for a couple of minutes.

Now this got a little bit tricky....I seemed to have too much liquid so ended up adding a LOT of extra powder sugar (then more emulsion so the lemon flavor wasn't diluted).  So I would recommend trying it without the milk and see how that works.

After all was said and done, 

even though the cupcakes weren't gorgeous,

THEY WERE DELICIOUS!!!!!

Very lemony!

We had gotten invited last minute to a BBQ and I couldn't go to the store, 

so I had to whip something up from what I had.

These cupcakes were a huge hit

as was the salsa!

Happy Lemony Summer!