spring

Keylime Cupcakes with keylime cream cheese frosting will bring just the right amount of tropical summer flavor to dessert!

Keylime Cupcakes are a delicious way to celebrate spring and summer get togethers. I just love the flavor of keylimes… compared to regular limes, keylimes are sweeter. Its a nice balance of sweet and tart. Of course, keylimes are best known for being used in Keylime Pie, especially down south. I went to college in Florida, and before that hadn’t ever heard of a keylime before! Now, I love using them to flavor all kinds of desserts, like they Keylime Cupcakes. Then, I took my go-to cream cheese frosting recipe and altered a little to compliment the cupcakes. The result is perfectly scrumptious.

Keylime Cupcakes with Keylime Cream Cheese Frosting

Here’s how to make Keylime Cupcakes with Keylime Cream Cheese Frosting. Be sure to pin this post so you can find this recipe again and again! This recipe makes 12 standard cupcakes.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup whole milk, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoon keylime juice
1 tablespoon keylime zest
4 oz unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
2 large egg whites, room temperature
OPTIONAL: I used a bit of green food coloring to achieve the green hue. This step is optional.

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350-degrees F. Line your muffin tins, or grease well.

Whisk together the dry ingredients in a medium bowl; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter until creamy. Add in the sugar, keylime zest and juice and beat again until fluffy. Add in the milk, egg, and egg whites and beat to combine. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Reduce the mixer speed to low and gently add the dry ingredients a little at a time until combined.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared muffin tin cups. Bake for 20-22 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Transfer the cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

Keylime Cream Cheese Frosting:

6oz cream cheese, room temperature

6oz butter, room temperature

Zest and juice of 2 keylimes

3-1/2 cups powdered sugar

Directions:

In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, add the butter and cream cheese. Beat until smooth. Add the zest and juice from the keylimes and beat to combine. Finally, add the powdered sugar into the bowl and mix gently on low until combined. Beat on high for 2 minutes.

Frost cooled keylime cupcakes by hand, or transfer the frosting to a piping bag. Store any leftover frosting in an airtight container the refrigerator for up to 10 days.

I hope you will enjoy these delicious cupcakes as much as my friends and family do when I make them! Check out these other great summer recipes:

Easter is here! And what makes Easter so fun? Decorations! Easter decorations are so pretty and get me so excited for spring with all the fun colors especially after gloomy winters. So here are some really fun and impressive Easter Cupcakes to wow guests or just to enjoy yourself!

So I live where from about November to almost the end of March we have snow, freezing weather, and gloomy outdoors, so when Easter hits I get super excited to bake anything because of the bright, fun, spring colors I get to use for the Holiday. These Easter Cupcakes turned out so cute and everyone was impressed. The marshmallow flower was actually pretty simple which I was a little surprised about and it looks amazing! I also did a few mini cupcakes as well just to have some bite size snacks. And yes I did a homemade cupcake mix but any box cupcake mix works just as well.

Ingredients

Cupcakes

1 ½ cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 stick butter, melted
1 ¼ cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 TBLS vanilla extract
¾ cup buttermilk (or combine ¾ cup milk and 1 teaspoon white vinegar and let sit for 5 minutes)
½ cup sprinkles

Frosting

1 cup butter, softened (not melted but not rock hard)
¼ teaspoon salt
5 cups powdered sugar
1 TBLS vanilla
1-2 TBLS heavy whipping cream (can use milk)

Decorations

Mini marshmallows, plain
Mini marshmallows, fruit flavored
Sprinkles
Peeps
Chicks
M&m’s

Directions

Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line cupcake tins with liners.
In a separate bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt.
Cream together melted butter and sugar in a mixer.
Add eggs and vanilla and mix until nice and creamy.
Slowly add flour mixture and buttermilk alternating between the two.
Stir in sprinkles.
Pour batter into prepared liners about 2/3 the way full.
Bake for 15 – 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Let cool completely before frosting.

Frosting

Cream butter and powdered sugar together.
Add in vanilla and salt
Slowly add in the whipping cream (or milk) until consistency is creamy and easy to spread but not runny.

Chick cupcakes

The cupcakes with the chick peeps just frost the cupcake either by doing a flower tip design with a piping tip or just frosting it normal. Place the chick in the middles and place miniature fruit flavored marshmallows around.

Bunny cupcakes

Bunny cupcakes leave a little space in the middle of the cupcake without frosting, place the bunny there and then I piped flowers around the base of the bunny just to stabilize it more so it wasn’t falling over. Place fruit flavored marshmallows around.

Marshmallow cupcakes

Fruit marshmallow cupcakes, frost and scatter marshmallows around.

Flower cupcakes

Colored flowered cupcakes. Take your plain mini marshmallows, about 10-14, and cut them diagonally and then place in a plastic bag. Take whatever color of sanding sugar and pour some into the bag, (you don’t need a lot so start with a little and you can always add more), shake! The sugar should stick to the sticky side and give you a pedal looking marshmallow. Starting with a frosted cupcake on the outer edge put a ring or marshmallows sprinkle side up. Then working from the outer edge in keep making circles until you reach the middle.

Other ideas

M&M’s, sprinkles, cadberry eggs, jelly beans, or even plain frosting can look really fun, with Easter Cupcakes it’s hard to not have fun colorful treats so use your imagination or wonder up and down the candy aisle at any store and I’m sure you’ll see something fun.