Lemon Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• lemon zest from 3 lemons; grated
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup buttermilk

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is until incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in zest and vanilla. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk and lemon juice, and beating until just combined after each.
3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until golden brown and a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

Notes

18 April 2026: I made these today after not making them for many years. I made one-fourth of the recipe so it would result in 6 cupcakes. I used Gold Medal all-purpose flour, regular lemons (I used Meyer lemons in the frosting), and ¼ teaspoon of lemon extract in addition to the vanilla. I also used as much lemon zest as I could get. I baked them in one of my 12-well cupcake pans, using the four along the front (when placing the pan into the oven) and the middle two wells in the middle row. I ended up with 1186 grams of batter, so each cupcake was about 63 grams. This seems just about right. I baked them on rack 2 for 21 minutes without rotating the pan. The oven seemed to be running a little warm, so 2-3 minutes after putting them in the oven, I turned the temperature down to 320°F. As soon as they came out of the oven, I ran an offset spatula gently around the edges to loosen them slightly. I let them cool in the pan on a rack for 7-8 minutes, and then held the pan at a 45° angle so it would be easier for them to pop/slide out when I ran the spatula around the edges again. This worked well and they came out without much difficulty or crumbs left behind. This was also my first use of my homemade cake release.