When we headed to America at the start of last year I had a list of foods and drinks I was really excited to try – think soft pretzels, crack pie and anything peanut butter. But I didn’t expect to come across what would become one of my absolute favourite drinks in the world – pink lemonade.
While I’d always read about it in books, seen it in movies and occasionally spotted a can in-store I’d never actually tried it. Sure, I love pink, but I just imagined pink lemonade to be coloured sprite. So. Wrong.
After realising how much I loved pink lemonade early on in the trip I spent the next couple of weeks drinking as much Minute Maid pink lemonade as I could lay my hands on. Then at Easter this year our good friends gave Kevin and I an amazing gift – a great big tub of pink lemonade powder…YUM!
When I was thinking about what to bake this week I spotted the tub tucked at the back of our cupboard (out of sight, out of mind!) and instantly decided to make a batch of pink lemonade cupcakes.
There’s a lot of flavour packed into these cupcakes – both regular lemonade and the pink variety! Imagine a fluffy sweet lemonade cupcake, topped with slightly tart pink lemonade buttercream. The combination is a match made in heaven and a must-try for any pink lemonade fan.
I wanted to make sure the cupcake itself was packed with lemonade-y flavour, but didn’t want to add any of the pink lemonade powder – I knew it would tint the batter a very pale pink colour, and it just wasn’t what I had in mind. Instead, I used a teaspoon of lemonade flavouring (you can buy it here) which is amazing – it tastes just like lemonade popsicles!
The icing is where the pink lemonade magic comes in. After whipping up a batch of fluffy buttercream I added 3 tablespoons of pink lemonade powder – just enough to replace the sweetness of the buttercream with that beautiful pink lemonade tang. The powder only very lightly tinted the icing, so I added a dot of pink gel colouring to ramp up the pink.
With all the flavour packed into the cake and icing, assembling these cupcakes is easy – simply pipe a swirl of icing on each cupcake, add a few sprinkles and a little paper straw for added cuteness. Voila! Easy, delicious pink lemonade cupcakes.
As an avid fan of pink lemonade I decided to leave the verdict to Kevin – unfortunately I couldn’t get anything out of him, he was too busy scoffing them! Let’s take that as a good sign!
Makes approx. 24 cupcakes
Ingredients
Cupcakes
- 225g butter, softened
- 2 cups sugar
- 4 eggs, room temperature
- 1 ½ cups self-rising flour
- 1 ¼ cups plain flour
- 1 cup milk
- 1 tsp lemonade flavouring
Pink lemonade buttercream
- 200g butter, softened
- 2 ½ – 3 cups icing sugar
- 2 – 3 Tbsp milk
- 3 Tbsp pink lemonade powder
Method
Cupcakes
- Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Line two 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake liners.
- Cream butter until smooth. Gradually add sugar and cream until light and fluffy (approx. 3 minutes)
- Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- In a small bowl, whisk together plain and self-rising flour. Add flour mixture to wet ingredients in three additions, alternating with milk. Add lemonade flavouring and mix until well combined.
- Spoon batter into cupcake liners to ¾ full. Bake for 20 -25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
- Cool cupcakes in pan for 15 minutes before placing on rack to cool.
Buttercream
- Place butter in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until pale and fluffy.
- Add 2 ½ cups icing sugar and 1 Tbsp of milk. Mix until well combined.
- Continue to add remaining icing sugar and milk until icing reaches a pipeable consistency.
- Add pink lemonade powder and beat until well combined. Add pink gel food colouring until lightly pink.
Scoop icing into a piping bag fitted with a 1M tip and pipe a swirl of icing onto each cupcake. Finish with sprinkles and a paper straw.
