Baking Lemon Strawberry-Filled Cupcakes with Land O’Lakes Butter Sticks #HolidayButter

For the past few months, I’ve been into baking things with Lemon. Back in the summer, I tried my hand at Lemon Shortbread, which only fueled my interested in baking lemon-y items. While the holidays approach, holiday baking kicks into gear with apple pies and holiday cookies popping out, and here I am still baking things with lemon. 🙂 Who says lemon is just for the spring? Not me.

This weekend, I decided to bake up another lemon treat. After a quick trip to Walmart, where I grabbed some fresh lemons and Land O’Lakes Unsalted Butter, I was ready to make Lemon Strawberry-Filled Cupcakes.

5 from 2 votes

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Lemon Strawberry-Filled Cupcakes

A hint of lemon with strawberries in one delicious cupcake.

Course Dessert

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 15 minutes

Servings 16

Author Miriam Tirips

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter room temperature
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 1 can strawberry pie filling
• 1/2 cup whole milk divided
• 1 1/4 tablespoon fresh lemon juice divided

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375F and line cupcake pan with cupcake liners
2. Sift the self-rising flour and salt together in a medium bowl.
3. In a large bowl, beat unsalted butter and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy.
4. Beat in the eggs one at a time, beating until each egg is fully mixed.
5. Mix in the vanilla extract and lemon zest.
6. Add one third of flour mix into the butter mix. Beat until just combined.
7. Add half the milk and half the lemon juice to mixture and beat until just combined.
8. Repeat until all the flour mix, lemon juice, and milk have been added. Do not over mix.
9. Fill the cupcake liners 1/4 full with batter.
10. Use spoons to create a small hole in the batter. Add a small spoonful (~1-2 tsp) of strawberry pie filling to each cupcake.
11. Top the strawberry pie filling with more cupcake batter until 3/4 full.
12. Bake in oven from 12-17 minutes.
13. Let cupcakes cool in pan for 10 minutes then move to cooling rack.
14. To make the icing, beat the heavy cream at low speed with an electric mixer until it begins to thicken.
15. Add half the confectioners' sugar and half the lemon juice to cream and beat at low speed until mixed.
16. Add remaining confectioners' sugar and lemon juice and beat at low speed until mixed.
17. Beat the mixture at high speed until it forms soft peaks.
18. Spread on full cooled cupcakes.
19. Optionally: Drizzle some of the strawberry pie filling on top of the icing.

I had a lot of fun making this recipe. To get started, I pulled out my Land O’Lakes Unsalted Butter sticks and two eggs to let them get down to room temperature.

Once at room temp, it was time to blend the butter and the sugar (I used organic sugar, but you can also use regular white sugar) until it created a light, almost cream, mix.

Next, I added the eggs, vanilla, and freshly zested lemon. (The kitchen smelled so good.)

Once the liquids were mixed, I mixed together the flour and the salt, and slowly added it to the butter mixture, alternating with the milk and fresh lemon juice.

After the batter was ready, it was time to start spooning in the cupcakes. First I started with a layer of cupcake batter and using the back of a spoon, created a small indentation for my strawberry pie filling. (There are other ways to fruit-fill a cupcake, but this was the easiest for me.)

Next, I filled the cupcakes to about 3/4 full with the rest of the filling.

As the cupcakes baked, I prepared the lemon icing using heavy whipping cream.

Once the cupcakes were done and had cooled, I topped them with the icing.

These cupcakes have a great lemon flavor that is really rich thanks to the Land O’Lakes butter. You can skip the strawberry filling if you just want lemon cupcakes, or you can use another type of filling (like blueberry for Lemon Blueberry-filled cupcakes.)

If you’d like to find more tasty holiday recipes you can bake this season with Land O’Lakes, visit the Land O’Lakes Holiday Recipes page. You may also want to follow Land O’Lakes on Facebook or on Twitter.

Enter to win a $250 Gift Card from Walmart!

To enter, follow Land O’Lakes on Pinterest, then enter your email in the form below and click “Enter”. Then pin the contest image to any of your pinterest boards and visit the Holiday Treats Board to share your favorite recipes. One lucky winner will be randomly selected to win a $250 Walmart Gift Card!