These are one of my favorite cupcakes yet! Even my more health-conscious friends ate two, and Chuck had four. There’s no combo better for the beginning of summer than strawberries  and lemonade 🙂

For the cupcakes:

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup lemonade powder mix (Country Time was really good)

1 cup milk

3 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp lemon zest

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line muffin pans with liners. In a medium bowl, mix the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt, lemonade powder, lemon zest, and set aside.

IN another bowl, cream butter and sugar until combined. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add the lemon juice and vanilla. Mix well. Gradually add the dry ingredients and the milk, alternating starting and ending with the dry ingredients and mix until combined.

Fill the liners about 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes, then cool for 5 minutes. Ice with Strawberry Lemon Frosting.

For the Frosting:

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature

4 cups powdered sugar

3 tbsp strawberry puree (I used more than that – I pureed something like 5-7 strawberries)

1 tsp lemon zest

Cream the butter for 1-2 minutes. Gradually add powdered sugar until well mixed. Mix in the strawberry puree and lemon zest. Frost your cupcakes!

**I topped my cupcakes with strawberry slices, but they ended up molding over time – so I had to throw everything out 😦 It was yummy though, so next time I will just add the strawberry slice to a few, and add after that as I go along. **