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These Lemon Cupcakes are the perfect lemon dessert with triple the lemon flavor. It’s like lemon smacks you in the face in every single bite! This is one of my favorite cupcake recipes – moist and tender with lemon filling and lemon buttercream frosting!
The Best Triple Lemon Cupcakes
It’s no secret that I love lemon desserts. These lemon cupcakes are the best lemon dessert I’ve made and this recipe is the best lemon cupcake I’ve ever had. You get lemon with every bite you take!
I wanted to have these cupcakes have lemon in every single bite so I added a hefty amount of zest to the cupcakes and tons of lemon flavor in the frosting PLUS I filled the cupcakes with my perfect lemon curd.
The result: These are the BEST Lemon Cupcakes you’ll ever eat!
Important Ingredients Needed
- Flour, Baking Powder, Salt: These are what I use in my vanilla cupcake recipe.
- Melted Butter: I start with melted butter to keep the cupcakes moist.
- Lemon: lemon zest and lemon juice to punch up the lemon flavor.
- Milk: Whole milk is best but you can use any fat content or nondairy milk.
- Powdered Sugar: Confectioners’ Sugar is best for a fluffy frosting
How to make Lemon Cupcakes
- Whisk dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
- Mix melted butter with granulated sugar, then add the eggs one at a time and add pure vanilla extract. You can use an electric mixer in a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Be sure to scrape the sides of the bowl during mixing.
- Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients alternately with the milk and mix just until moistened.
- Place cupcake liners in muffin tin and fill 2/3 full. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. You’ll need 2 cupcake pans. Cool on a wire rack.
- Once the cupcakes are cool, you can fill the cupcakes with lemon curd. Simply cut out a small section of the cupcake (a circle about the size of a dime) and spoon some curd in the hole. Replace some of the removed cupcake part and your lemon cupcake is ready for frosting.
- Make the frosting by beating the softened butter with powdered sugar until crumbly, then add the lemon zest and juice until mixture is smooth for frosting.
The cupcakes make the oven smell amazing, which is how you know you added enough lemon.
Expert Tips
- You can easily buy lemon curd (it’s sold by the jams and jellies) or you can make homemade lemon curd. Making your own is easy and fast and it’s SO good to fill cupcakes with or eat on toast or with a spoon.
- I love making the frosting up to two days ahead of time and storing it in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Then when I’m ready to frost my cupcakes, I just let it come to room temperature before frosting. I also love freezing the frosting for later!
- Store cupcakes unfrosted in the freezer for up to 2 months (in an airtight container).
- Want even more lemon flavor? Add 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract with the vanilla.
- You know cake and cupcakes are done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
FAQs
Can you freeze these cupcakes?
You can! Freeze these cupcakes in an airtight container for up to 2 months.
Perfect Triple Lemon Cupcakes Recipe
These Lemon Cupcakes are perfect! They have triple the lemon flavor with lemon in the cupcake and the frosting, and they’re filled with lemon curd. The perfect cupcake to bring sunshine to any day!
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes
Ingredients
Cupcakes:
- 1 ½ cups (186g) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup (113g) unsalted butter melted
- 1 ¼ cups (250g) sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- ¼ cup (59ml) fresh lemon juice from about 1/2 a large lemon
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest from about 1 large lemon
- ½ cup (119ml) whole milk
Filling & Frosting:
- ½ cup lemon curd jarred or from scratch for the filling
- 1 cup (226g) unsalted butter softened
- 4 ½ cups (509g) powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest 1 large lemon
- ¼ cup (59g) lemon juice 1 large lemon
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1-2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream for desired consistency
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line cupcake tins with liners (makes 15-16 cupcakes).
- Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.
- Add melted butter to a large bowl and mix in sugar with a hand mixer for 30 seconds, until thick and yellow. Add eggs one at at time, beating after each addition. Beat in vanilla extract, lemon juice, and zest.
- Add the flour mixture and milk alternately, starting and ending with the flour. Don’t over mix! Divide batter among liners, filling 2/3 full (about 1/4 cup of batter per cupcake). Bake for 13-18 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. (Mine took about 14 minutes.) Cool completely before frosting.
- To fill: cut out a small bit of the top/center of the cupcake. (Cut a hole that’s about the size of a dime and the amount of cupcake you take out is a little larger than a marble.) Fill each hole with about 1/2 – 1 tablespoon of lemon curd. Replace a piece of the cupcake to cover.
- To make the frosting: Beat butter until creamy. Beat in salt and 1 cup of powdered sugar at a time until it’s all added.
- Beat in lemon juice and zest. Add 1 tablespoon of heavy whipping cream and mix until smooth. Add more cream as needed for desired consistency. Frosting can be made up to 2 days ahead and stored in the refrigerator. Make sure to let it come to room temperature before using.
- Frost cupcakes by placing frosting in a pastry bag. I like the 1M tip, it gives pretty swirls. Add extra lemon zest or sprinkles for decoration, if desired.
Recipe Video
Recipe Notes
- Be sure not to over mix the batter or they will turn out too dense
- Don’t let the batter sit – bake them as soon as they are mixed for a fluffier cupcake.
Recipe Nutrition
Serving: 1cupcake | Calories: 464kcal | Carbohydrates: 68g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 21g | Saturated Fat: 13g | Cholesterol: 84mg | Sodium: 159mg | Potassium: 75mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 57g | Vitamin A: 645IU | Vitamin C: 4.1mg | Calcium: 33mg | Iron: 0.8mg
Nutritional information not guaranteed to be accurate
if you’re concerned about calories then you’re in the wrong line of work
Made this for the first time in 2016 for a Celebration of Life Gathering. My mother had died and she was known for her love of all things dessert, so I wanted to honor her by making something really special. I hate cooking, but the challenge of making something in honor of her was important, so I made these cupcakes. They were a huge hit! I am now relied upon to provide these cupcakes for our annual real estate Baked Goods Auction- I make 3 dozen and last year my cupcakes fetched over $500.00.
Important things to know if you don’t have the good luck to get it perfect the first time (I wasn’t as meticulous in subsequent batches but I now know why- consistency in carefully following these guidelines will help!): First, follow the directions EXACTLY. When it says “begin with the flour and end with the flour” when combining the flour and whole milk to the batter, do it this way! Use the REAL lemons. Also, bring eggs to room temperature. Make sure oven temperature is accurate- use a thermometer if your oven isn’t reliable. Pre-heat the oven completely. You can use an electric mixer, but never mix on high- use the wisking attachments and go “easy.” When mixing batter, only mix until it’s “just mixed.” Over-mixing will ruin the cupcakes. You can’t go off and do something else while running the mixer (like you can when making Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies.) Trust me. Also, do not walk off and keep the cupcakes in the oven too long- and once the buzzer goes off and the tooth-pick test comes out clean, get the cakes out of their pans or they’ll continue to cook and will be dry. Use the freshest eggs & other ingredients. Items on sale are usually WAY past their ideal use date. I’ve read up on cupcakes because they really aren’t a “piece of cake” to get right. Other good tips include: 1- if you can’t measure accurately with your eyes, use a scoop to fill each of the cupcake liners so they’re equally filled, and only fill them about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way up. 2- put icing completely over the top, to the edges of the cupcake- it’ll keep the cake fresher longer. 3- the icing gets warm quickly when you use a plastic cone for decorating. Ice the cupcakes quickly or the icing gets disgusting and you can’t get it to look nice. Refrigerate it for a few minutes if you have to. If you have no artistic ablities, don’t bother with filling a cone and screwing around with the tips… just spread the icing on neatly… 4. Store in air-tight containers like Tupperware. Storing on the counter or in the fridge with only a wrap over them won’t keep them from getting stale and/or hard. I still hate cooking but these things ROCK.
I am excited to make! I have not made yet and plan to for Easter cookout. Do these need to be refridgerated when not being served? For example, can I make at home (and refrigerate if needed) then take to cookout where they can be on table for a couple of hours (more) before serving. Or can they simply be in the air conditioned house for serving. My host will have no room in the fridge. Thanks for any response.
How do you make the frosting??
Made these for my mom for Mother’s Day as she’s a huge lemon fanatic. She LOVED them as did everyone else there. The cake and icing were so light,fluffy and had a ton of lemon flavour without being overbearing.
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