Lemon Snowball Cupcakes

My mom came home from California for a week-long visit. It was my Dad's brother's (and his wife's) fiftieth wedding anniversary and they were having a big celebration. Unfortunately I had to work on Sunday, but I was happy to have spent a few days with my mom while she was here on the east coast.
To welcome her home I decided to surprise her with some cupcakes. She was a huge fan of Sno Balls when she was little so when I found the recipe for "Lemon Snowballs" in "cupcakes!" by Elinor Klivans I knew I had found the winning recipe.


I would follow this as is. Everything came out just like I hoped it would.
I had never attempted cupcakes with a filling before but had fun tackling this feat.
Don't be daunted by the amount of different recipes you have here.
When I make cupcakes, I like to make the frosting first, to sort of get it over with. For some reason I get aggravated when I've made these beautiful cupcakes and have to make the frosting to really finish them off. I prefer to have that frosting ready and waiting so when the cupcakes come OUT of the oven it's all about...got frosting? Will eat :)

Lemon coconut snowballs

7-minute frosting:

1 ¼ cups sugar
1/3 cup water
3 large egg whites
¼ tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp almond extract

Lemon filling:

¼ cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 cup sugar
2 tbl cornstarch, dissolved in ¼ cup water
1 tsp grated lemon zest

Batter:

1 1/3 cups cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
6 tbl whole milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp almond extract
6 tbl (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, at room temp
1 cup sugar
6 large egg whites
¼ tsp cream of tartar
¾ cup lemon filling

You can do it! Just look at what will come out if you go through with this!



7-minute frosting

1. Put sugar, water, egg whites, and cream of tartar in a heatproof bowl or the top of a double boiler with at least a 2-qt capacity and beat with a handheld electric mixer on high speed until opaque, white and foamy.
2. Put the bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water (or the bottom of the double boiler). Top container should sit firmly over the pan of hot water.
3. Beat on high speed until the frosting forms a soft peak that stands straight up if you stop the beaters and lift them up, about 7 minutes, should register about 160 degrees.
4. Remove the container of frosting from the water. Add the vanilla and almond extracts, and continue beating for 2 minutes to further thicken the frosting.

Lemon sauce filling:

1. Heat butter and lemon juice over medium heat until butter melts (in a saucepan)
2. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, egg yolks, and sugar. Then whisk in dissolved corn starch. Whisking continuously, slowly pour hot butter and lemon juice into yolk mixture.
3. Return mixture to saucepan and cook over medium heat until thickens, about 6 minutes.
4. Once the spoon starts leaving a path behind it, remove from heat and pour into small bowl, stirring in the lemon zest.
5. Refrigerate until cold, and until needed.

Making cupcake batter:

1. Position rack in middle of the oven. Preheat to 350 degrees. Line 12 muffin tin cups with paper cupcake liners.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside. In a small bowl, stir the milk and vanilla and almond extracts together.
3. In large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until smoothly blended and lightened in color, about two minutes. Stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl as needed during mixing. On low speed add the flour mixture in three additions and the milk mixture in two additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture and beating until each addition is incorporated before adding the next.
4. In another large bowl, using clean beaters, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar on low speed until the whites are foamy and the cream of tartar dissolves, about a minute. Beat on medium-high speed until soft peaks form. Use a spatula to fold one-third of the whipped egg whites into the batter, then fold in the remaining whites.
5. Fill each paper liner with 1/3 cup of batter, to about ¼ inch below the top of the liner. Bake just until the tops feel firm and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Tops should reamin pale and barely brown on the edges.
6. Cool the cupcakes for ten minutes in the pan or on a wire rack.
7. To fill the cupcakes with the lemon filling, cut a cone-shaped piece, about one inch across and one inch deep, out of the middle of the top of each cupcake; set the pieces aside. Spoon one tablespoon of lemon filling into each hole. Replace the cone-shaped pieces of cupcake. Immediately frost afterwards.
8. Spread the coconut on a plate or a piece of wax paper and roll the frosted cupcake in the coconut. You can choose to either just frost the top of the cupcake (like I did) or the entire thing, like the recipe suggested a la Hostess Sno Balls: )
Help me eat this mountain of cupcakes!