Baking Chez Moi - Limoncello Cupcakes

Limoncello is an Italian lemon liqueur mainly produced in Southern Italy. Very special, small batch productions are also released a few times a year out of the DeLauro home, overlooking Mission Bay, in sunny San Diego ;-)

Holli's Limoncello

I'm several days late in posting April's first Baking Chez Moi recipe, only because I wanted to make these luscious lemony cupcakes to share at Holli's cooking class today. We will be learning to make three different types of sausages - breakfast patties, chicken-apple, and Jim's hot Italian sausage. These cupcakes, along with Francesco's cookies, should be nice treats for dessert.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any of Holli's limoncello in the house (it doesn't last long), so I bought a bottle of Pallini limoncello, made with Sfusato lemons grown on the Amalfi Coast of Italy. The cupcakes recipe has six tablespoons of limoncello divided between the batter, syrup (brushed on the tops of the warm cupcakes), and frosting. There is also lemon zest and lemon juice in the recipe! Very lemony indeed! The frosting is AMAZING...

As an additional option, you can drop a teaspoon of lemon or orange marmalade into the center of the batter as you are filling up the cupcake liners. I chose to add wild (as opposed to tame) blueberry preserves. Lemon-blueberry is such a classic flavor combination. I also added a touch of yellow coloring to the frosting and piped it through a star tip.

I couldn't resist teasing Trapper for a few minutes to take this photo. I was a bit nervous about him grabbing one out of the pan and/or shaking his head and letting the drool fly, but all worked out well and he was rewarded with a more appropriate dog treat.

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Tuesdays with Dorie is an online cooking group where anyone can bake along. The group bakes from two books – Baking with Julia and Baking Chez Moi. I bake along with the Baking Chez Moi group. We bake two recipes per month (voted on by the members in advance) and post on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month. We are asked to refrain from including the actual recipe in our posts, to promote the publishing industry and encourage others to buy the cookbooks.