Lemon Mascarpone Cupcakes - Two Ways

For SYJ, JJ, JEL, HJL, EK, CA, TR, SWC, MKL, LCH, RH - My Lemon Cupcake tasting crew...

Initially when I started this blog, I had the idea that I would hunt and search and find the one perfect recipe that would mean my readers didn't need to find another recipe - they would have the one tried and true recipe at their fingertips, thereby eliminating any extra research.

I began my quest for a perfect lemon cupcake about one month ago. I started out with one recipe for the cake and a couple of different frosting attempts and had them taste tested by an expert panel of judges (basically close friends and family - my guinea pigs.) My judges told me hands down it was the perfect cake - dense, moist, rich, lemony and buttery all at the same time. But I found myself wanting something different - lighter, less dense. I decided to try yet another cupcake recipe - something lighter, fluffier and spongier, if you will. And I did - only to find myself torn with the all-important question...

In a cupcake - do you want fluffy or dense?

(In the photograph, dense is on the left, fluffy on the right.) In polling friends and family, I found that the two camps were fiercely loyal to their preference -dense or fluffy. The dense camp favored their cakes because they liked bite and substance to their cake - they also argued that dense was moister and more flavorful. The fluffy camp liked the lightness of the cake - you could eat more of them, you weren't so weighed down by them.

Finally I decided to do a head-to-head taste testing of the two cupcakes -dense vs. fluffy, and this past Saturday I did, for an expert panel of taste testers. I made one set of cupcakes with the fluffy cake another with the dense and frosted them with the same lemon mascarpone frosting. The results were surprising - when I tasted them next to one another, I actually found myself leaning more towards the denser cake, when I thought I was a fluffy girl. My best friend, self-proclaimed dense lover, carefully analyzed the merits of both cakes - dense was moist, rich and delicious, but she actually preferred the flavor of the fluffy. In her final analysis the frosting pretty much equated everything making the cupcakes virtually equal in her eyes.

In the end, I was unable to choose WHICH cupcake was the superior one - and ended up deciding to post both here. The dense lemon cupcake is from my favorite cupcake blogger Cheryl, who made a lemon cupcake with some lavender and rose frostings. I just took the lemon cupcake batter and used it. The fluffy lemon cupcake is from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook which is actually a lemon cake which I modified to make into cupcake portions. The mascarpone frosting is of my own creation, although the fundamentals of cream cheese/mascarpone frostings are pretty standard. You'll need to taste test both and decide if you like it...dense or fluffy.

DENSE Lemon Cupcakes
14 regular cupcakes

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
½ cup milk
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
zest of one lemon

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 lemon juice and lemon zest.
7. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.
8. Let cool and then frost with Lemon Mascarpone Frosting

FLUFFY Lemon Cupcakes (from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook)
12 regular cupcakes (I've managed to squeeze out 14 a couple of times)

8 tablespoons of butter, softened (1 stick of butter)
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup self-rising flour
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin pan with liners.
2. Cream butter until smooth, add sugar gradually and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes.
3. Add eggs one at a time.
4. Combine the flours and add in four parts, alternating with milk and lemon juice and zest, beating well after each addition.
5. Divide batter in muffin tins. Bake 20-25 minutes.
6. Cool and then ice with lemon mascarpone frosting.

Lemon Mascarpone Frosting (enough for 14 cupcakes)
4 tablespoons butter (2 oz or 1/2 stick), softened
8 oz of mascarpone cheese (I get 8 oz for $2.99 at Trader Joes)
2 1/2-3 cups of powdered sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest

With a mixer, cream butter and mascarpone cheese together until well incorporated and fluffy. Add lemon juice and lemon zest and 1 cup of sugar. Gradually add more sugar - you will need more sugar for it to be pipeable (stiffer) and less if you are just going to spread it on the cake.