lemondreamcupcakes        
mochadreamcupcakes
For a recent, very casual,  family birthday celebration, I decided to attempt to please my not-so-interested-in-cake family with these cuppycakes in couple of flavours-delish!  And, since our family is sort of divided regarding what flavour is the best for desserts in general, I tried to accommodate them all by making two known favourites: lemon and mocha.

So, I had some leftover lemon curd—I know, right?!??! Who has leftover lemon curd?!  I baked an extra large batch of cupcakes (almond sour-cream) and used what have become my very favourite baking cups — the dark brown oil resistant cupcake cups… they’re always just perfect and they’re tall, too, so they can accommodate making a tad bit larger cupcake baked in the same standard size pan.

When the cuppycakes were cooled, I put lemon curd in a pastry bag fitted with a long slender frosting tip – it looks like this one which is typically used for bismarks.  I inserted the tip down into the cupcake, applying pressure to the bag and slowly pulling the frosting tip out of the each cupcake until I could see that each cupcake was filled evenly to the top with lemon curd.  This process is very simple and cupcakes can easily be filled with whatever your choice of filling, buttercream or chocolate ganache.

I made basic buttercream frosting and frosted the filled “lemondream” cuppycakes first.  Then to make the “mochadream frosting” I added a bit more butter & cream, a couple of Starbucks Via instant coffee packets and a cup of dark chocolate cocoa powder and whipped it for several minutes in my mixer.

To the top of the lemondreams, I piped the lemon squiggle — and to the top of the mochadreams, I added a few chocolate covered espresso beans.  See how easy it is to make a variety with very few additions?!