SMS: Sweet Almond Cupcakes with Lemon Curd Filling

This week's SMS was chosen by Katie of Katiecakes: sweet almond cake with lemon curd and lemon mascarpone frosting - whew, that's a mouthful! It sounded great to me though so I was definitely game. Only problem? No need for a huge cake that only I would eat sitting here tempting me all weekend. Instead, I went with cupcakes with a lemon curd filling. You'll notice I skipped the frosting - more on that later.

I made 1/4 of the cake recipe, which yielded just 7 cupcakes. The cake batter is full of goodness - almonds ground with sugar to make almond flour, browned butter and lots of egg whites whipped with sugar to make a meringue. As a result, the cupcakes were incredibly delicious, definitely among my favorites! They were moist, light and had wonderful almond flavor. As for the lemon curd, it can do no wrong in my book. I cut little cones from the tops of my cupcakes, filled them with the lemon curd and then proceeded to eat several spoonfuls of the leftover curd with a spoon :) I had to cook the curd quite a few minutes longer than Melissa instructed and it was a bit thinner than I'd have liked, but every bit as delicious as other recipes I've made.

It all went wrong with the frosting, unfortunately. The frosting consists of confectioners' sugar, mascarpone cheese, lemon juice and zest and butter and Melissa warns not only to have the butter and mascarpone at room temp, but not to overbeat the ingredients or the frosting will wind up grainy. As soon as I added the butter and mascarpone my frosting looked curdled and grainy. I couldn't figure out how to salvage it so I skipped it entirely. If I'd been feeling more motivated I would have whipped up cream cheese frosting (my fave!) but instead I just threw a few fresh raspberries on top of the cupcakes and called it a day. I'll definitely make this cake again along with the lemon curd and just go with a different frosting. It's one that's sure to please almond and lemon lovers!

Thanks to Kate for hosting this week! You can find the recipe on her site here or on pages 104-106 of The Sweet Melissa Baking Book.

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