Ultimate Citrus Cupcake Showdown - Triple Tested #8

My fellow Steemians,

I can’t think of many things that are more refreshing than a cupcake flavoured with the zesty freshness of lemon or the fresh sweetness of orange. For me it’s a ray of summer sunshine in my mouth.

Today’s cupcake showdown is dedicated to cake and frosting flavoured with citrus fruits. Let’s see which recipe did the best job of capturing summer in their batter.

...
The Contenders
Recipe #1: Orange Cupcakes
http://www.bakingmakesthingsbetter.com/2012/09/orange-cupcakes.html

Recipe #2: Homemade Lemon Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2013/04/11/homemade-lemon-cupcakes-with-vanilla-frosting/

Recipe #3: Key Lime Cupcakes
http://thecakeblog.com/2017/03/key-lime-cupcakes.html

...
Orange Cupcakes

My endorsement for this recipe can be summed up with one statement — it tasted like a Creamsicle. The frosting was a delicious combination of creamy and orangey. The cake was amazing after I made one adjustment. The cupcake this recipe made was moist and delicious but very plain. No orange flavour at all. This orange frosting on a plain cupcake would still be delicious. But I didn’t rest until the cake was just as delicious.

I went back and added 2 tablespoons of orange zest to go along with the half cup of fresh orange juice in the batter recipe. The end result was a cupcake just as moist as before but with an amped up orange flavour. Juicy.

Homemade Lemon Cupcakes

Something this cupcake has in spades is lemon flavour. So much so you don’t need a flavoured frosting! The vanilla buttercream was actually a nice flavour complement to the lemon cake.

The cake had a very delicate crumb. It was softer than the orange cupcakes and that maybe isn’t a good thing. The texture toed the line between moist and mushy. Also it didn’t rise as nicely as the orange. These came out with a flat top where the orange had a dome top. These points didn’t do the lemon batch any favours.

Key Lime Cupcakes

These cupcakes had the weakest flavour. They came off as plain then had a lime finish. Not really what I was hoping for when I searched for key lime cupcakes. The lime frosting was more impressive than the cake.

Like the lemon cupcakes these didn’t rise very nicely. They also had a very delicate texture. These two included milk in the recipes and the orange didn’t. I’m wondering if that could account for the difference in texture.

...

The best cupcake was definitely the second attempt at the orange cupcakes, with the added orange zest. If I had to go by the recipes as written then my winner would be the lemon cupcakes. I just liked the texture of the orange so much more. And although the key lime frosting was very good I enjoyed the orange frosting that much more.