Vanilla cupcakes with lemon filling

I knew it had to happen eventually, a King Arthur Flour recipe that didn't go quite as planned. For a friend's birthday, I made the very vanilla cupcakes with lemon filling (http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/very-vanilla-cupcakes-with-lemon-filling-recipe) over the last two nights.

On Wednesday night, I made the lemon filling. First off, I don't know what kind of mutant lemons they use up there in Vermont. I think I used 6 lemons for the zest and at least 8 to get enough juice for the recipe. That added a lot more time than I was expecting. Then I put all my ingredients in my poor man's double boiler (a glass bowl that fits over a sauce pot) and went on with the recipe. It never thickened up the way the recipe said it would and I have no idea how anyone would ever be able to bring something like that to a boil over a double boiler! Isn't that the whole point of a double boiler...to make sure the ingredients didn't get too hot. I eventually got tired of waiting to see if maybe, just maybe it would actually boil and I filled the bottom pot up with lots of water and turned the burner on as high as it would go. 15 minutes later and still nothing, just as I had expected.

I was tired of waiting around (and getting tired in general, its been a verrrry long workweek with lots of early mornings and late evenings) so I took the lemon mixture out of the bowl, poured off the water in the bottom pot and placed my lemon mixture in there and put it on over medium low heat. The mixture finally came to a boil and I cooked it for one minute and took it off the heat, covered it with saran wrap touching the surface and placed it in the fridge overnight. I was hoping it would have a good consistency the next day, but wasn't completely sure it would make it.

I made the cupcakes without any issues. 15 cupcakes seemed like a little less than I would normally make for that amount of batter, the cupcake cups were about 90% full. When I baked these, they didn't rise quite as much as I thought they might and the three in the second muffin pan were done much quicker than the others. I creamed the butter and sugar together for a long time, incorporating lots of air bubbles to help with the leavening, so that isn't the problem. Next time I will have to remember to spread out the cupcakes so that there is an even number in each of the pans.

Also, when I tried to cut the tops off per the recipe directions, it didn't look the prettiest. So I made an executive decision and just placed a heaping spoonful of the lemon curd (which did turn out nicely, by the way) right in the center of the cupcakes. It made for a much nicer presentation. I placed them in the fridge overnight to set up.

I didn't get a whole lot of feedback on this one since I placed all the goodies in the hallway for people to munch on at their convenience. But one person did say the flavor was very nice and the cupcake was extremely light and fluffy with an even consistency throughout. I didn't taste the cupcakes yet, but I still have the three at home where I tried to put the filling in the center and it looked awful (see the picture above). I will have to add my opinion this weekend, once I get a taste of these cupcakes. Then I will decide if they will be a repeat recipe or something that is pushed aside to give some other baked good the spotlight.