Cherry Limeade Cupcakes

This morning I woke up and couldn’t stop thinking of a 7-Up Cake.  I baked one last year and wanted to revisit its deliciousness.

I’ve also been looking at a handful of cherries for a good part of this week… “What am I going to do with you?”

Ok.  Combining these two flavors seems like a perfect pairing since a wonderful summertime Limeade or Lemonade can really hit the spot.

Right away I ran into a roadblock… I hadn’t posted my recipe that I used last year.  So, I dug through my old notes and found the recipe I originally used – but failed to write down my changes.  I had to make adaptations the last time since I had baked a layer cake and not a pound cake/Bundt cake.  Gaahhh!  So, most of the morning was figuring out a recipe based on the clues I left in this post, My Cake Looks Like a Hat.

The cupcakes went together like this.

There’s lemon zest in the cupcake batter and lime zest in the buttercream.  I couldn’t remember how much the layer cake had risen when I baked it last year, so I had to wait until the first batch was done and out of the oven to determine the fill limit – these didn’t rise much, as the snapshots indicate.

I wanted to use the cherries… and I wanted to use the strawberries.  I drizzled some white chocolate tinted with green gel.  I’d have preferred using green candy melts, but I didn’t have any in that color in my cupboard. 

I do love the look of these cupcakes.  And, as I’ve mentioned before… I need a food stylist!