These Lemon Raspberry Cupcakes have it all. They’re zesty, fruity, moist, fluffy, buttery and topped with the creamiest buttercream you’ll ever try.
Love lemon as much as me? Then you’ll also love these fluffy lemon cupcakes with cream cheese buttercream and these lemon blueberry cupcakes.
Why you’ll love it
Lemon and raspberries are always a winning combination. These cupcakes are soft and lemony and make it feel like springtime.
Raspberries enter in the form of a super quick raspberry curd surprise centre and fresh raspberries in the buttercream. Oh and that creamy buttercream is the stuff of dreams.
Ingredients in this recipe
- The Base dry ingredients: Flour, salt, baking powder and cornflour. The combination of flour and cornflour is equivalent to cake flour, keeping the cupcakes soft.
- Wet ingredients: Milk, butter, vanilla and eggs.
- Sugar: Just regular white sugar, this gets mixed into the wet ingredients before adding the dry.
- Raspberries: Fresh raspberries are best here.
- Lemons: Both the zest and juice is used in this recipe.
Handy equipment to have
- A large bowl
- An electric beater is best, but a balloon whisk will work.
- 12 hole muffin tin
- Cupcake corer or a sharp knife
- Piping bags
How to make them
These lemon raspberry cupcakes are one of my fave recipes because of the simplicity in making them. The batter is just simply mixed by hand and while I use a stand mixer for the buttercream, an electric beater will do the job.
- Whisk and mix the dry ingredients together. Whisking them helps to create a little air.
- Beat together the butter and sugar.
- Add the eggs and beat really well after each one.
- Use a spatula to gradually stir in the flour and milk separately.
- I use a medium ice cream scoop to scoop the batter into the cupcake cases, then bake.
The simple raspberry curd
While this isn’t a true fruit curd, it has the same consistency and is bursting with fresh raspberry flavour. You can use frozen raspberries for this though.
Just 4 ingredients, pureed, then heated until thick before letting it cool completely. This is spooned into the centre of the cooled cupcakes.
The fluffy ermine buttercream
The buttercream is the stuff of dreams. Ethereally light and fluffy, this is almost like whipped cream with the stability of buttercream.
Ermine buttercream is absolutely, without a doubt, my favourite type. It starts with a pudding base made by heating milk and flour together. This German Buttercream has a similar texture.
This pudding mixture added to butter and regular white sugar (not powdered), makes for the smoothest, creamiest buttercream you’ll ever taste.
Yes, that regular sugar dissolves completely and there is no grittiness to this buttercream. It’s also not as sickly sweet as a standard powdered sugar based buttercream. You could eat it by the spoonful.
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More beautiful cupcake recipes
- Coconut and Raspberry Cake
- Coconut Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes
- Orange Cupcakes with the Creamiest Orange Buttercream
- Raspberry Chocolate Cupcakes
- Cherry Pistachio Cupcakes
- Easy Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream
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Ingredients
CUPCAKES
- 195 g plain (all purp) Flour (1 ½ cups / 6.8oz)
- 30 g corn flour (corn starch) (1oz)
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- Zest of one medium lemon
- 1 ¼ cup granulated white sugar (250g / 8.8oz)
- 113 g unsalted butter, melted (½ cup / 1 stick)
- 2 large eggs, room temp
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- ¾ cup full cream (whole) milk, room temp
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice (note 1)
RASPBERRY CURD
- ½ cup raspberries
- 2 tablespoons water (note 1)
- 1 tablespoon graunulated sugar (note 1)
- 1 tablespoon corn flour (cornstarch) (notes 1 & 3)
RASPBERRY BUTTERCREAM
- 1 cup milk (250ml)
- ¼ cup plain (all-purp) flour (33g / 1.2oz)
- 226 g unsalted butter, room temp (2 sticks / 1 cup / 8oz)
- 1 cup caster (superfine) sugar (200g / 7oz) (note 4)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
- ¼ cup raspberries, torn into small pieces
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 12 raspberries, to decorate
For best results, always weigh ingredients where a weight is provided
Instructions
FOR THE CUPCAKES
- Preheat your oven to 180C / 350F (160C fan) and line your muffin tins with paper cupcake cases
- In a bowl, sift together the flour, corn flour, baking powder and salt. Add the lemon zest and mix well to combine.
- In a separate bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the melted butter and sugar until smooth.
- Add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl each time and beating well after each. The mixture should look smooth and silky. Add the vanilla and mix well to combine.
- Add ⅓ of the flour mixture to the butter and sugar mixture. Stir through gently until only just combined. Now add half of the milk and the lemon juice. Mix gently again. Continue like this until all the flour and milk is combined… just. It is important not to overmix or be too heavy handed otherwise your cupcakes will turn out dense and tough.
- Fill the cupcake cases to about 3/4 full. Bake in the oven for around 20-22 minutes, turning the pan around in the oven half way through to make sure they bake evenly. When a skewer inserted comes out with just a crumb or two, they are done.
- Cool in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack. Let the cupcakes cool completely before proceeding.
MAKE THE RASPBERRY CURD
- Use a blender to purée the raspberries, water, sugar and cornflour.
- Transfer to a saucepan and cook over low heat. Stirring constantly until so thick the spoon leaves a trail that takes a few seconds to fill in again.
- Strain out the seeds if you prefer then store in the fridge until ready.
FOR THE ERMINE BUTTERCREAM
- Whisk the milk and flour together in a small saucepan over a low heat. Keep whisking until it thickens. It needs to be very thick, like pudding, and should leave a trail that doesn’t quickly cover over when you stir.
- Pour the mix into a bowl, cover it with plastic wrap making sure to press it to the surface of the mixture so it doesn’t form a skin. Cool to room temperature – you can speed this up in the freezer, just make sure it isn’t cold when you use it, but roughly room temperature.
- Once cooled, beat the butter and sugar on high for 4-5 minutes until very pale and creamy. Scrape down the sides from time to time.
- With the mixer on low, add the milk & flour paste 1 tablespoon at a time. Beat for another 4-5 minutes until it looks thick and whipped. It may, at a point look split or curdled, just continue to beat. It will come together again.
- Beat in the vanilla and salt, then carefully stir in the torn raspberries and lemon zest until just combined.
ASSEMBLING THE CUPCAKES
- Cut a hole with a cupcake corer or sharp knife in the top of each cupcake. Add about 1 teaspoon of curd to each.
- Pipe buttercream on top of each cupcake, then top with decorations.
Notes
- I use an Australian standard 20ml tablespoon (= 4 teaspoons worldwide)
- For best results you should always weigh ingredients like flour and sugar. Kitchen scales are relatively cheap but if you can’t weigh the ingredients, use the spoon and level method (don’t scoop).
- I use corn starch a lot in my baking. Cake flour is a combination of all-purpose and corn starch but in Australia is not so readily available. I use this combo in my recipes a lot instead of using cake flour.
- While I suggest using caster sugar in the frosting as it dissolves quicker, regular white sugar will work. Don’t use powdered / icing sugar.
- You’ll need 2 lemons for this recipe.
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14 Comments on “Lemon Raspberry Cupcakes”
I made them dairy free and Gluten Free. Everyone loved them! My family is asking that I make them again. I even made the icing but added in Oreos instead of raspberry for chocolate cupcakes. Then I left the icing plain to decorate a Mario pull apart cake this weekend! Love it all!
So happy you love them, Merissa.
Can I make the cupcakes ahead of time and freeze them?
Yes, you can. They can be frozen, unfrosted and would suggest leaving the frosting until the day of serving.
What a great cupcake recipe. I added the zest of another half lemon and another tsp vanilla to the cupcakes themselves because I have trouble leaving a recipe alone and it still came out great. Thank you for sharing these. The lemon cupcake alone is a lovely versatile recipe to have on hand and then there are the wonderful add ins that make this a lovely overall treat. Yummmm. Word to the wise, the author is on point about being careful about when these are finished. I did not imagine mine were finished by the look, but they were. Glad I listened/read.
So happy you love it, Kat. Thanks for trying my recipe 🙂
Could you please show American measurements in your recipes. We don’t use metric. Thank you.
Hello Chloe, all measurements are shown in grams, cups and ounces where they can be. Which are you unsure about? Please keep in mind, weighing ingredients will always give the best result too.
Can frozen raspberries be used?
Hello Sharon, you can use frozen for the curd but not in the frosting. If you can only get frozen right now, then make double the curd and carefully fold the leftover through the frosting once it’s ready and your just about to pipe it on.
These look amazing but flour in the butter cream?
Made your Lemon Meringue Cake & Melting Moments Lemon Cookies and wow, delicious!!!
Hello Denisa, yes, I know it sounds strange but it makes for the most creamy luscious frosting ever. The flour is cooked so you don’t taste it. So happy you loved the other recipes too – thanks so much for your support 🙂
I would love to make your recipe but I don’t understand some of your measurements. can you give the measurements in cups or oz? how many eggs are 3.2? or 0.8 teaspoon or cup???
thank you
Hi Patricia, there is a serving scale in the recipe card that I think you may have adjusted. The quantities you mentioned aren’t actually in the recipe. It’s only 2 eggs. It looks like you may have adjusted the standard recipe from 15 to 24 so the measurements change with it. Hope that helps