These Triple Lemon Baby Cakes with Lemon Pudding Cream are the zesty dessert of your dreams. They’re super moist mini lemon cupcakes garnished with lemon jelly beans!
Triple Lemon Baby Cakes with Lemon Pudding Cream
As our youngest daughter’s birthday approaches each April, my mind turns to lemon desserts. Lemon is her flavor and yellow is her color, and it all fits quite appropriately into the arrival of spring each year. I’ve always had a heart for bright lemon in early spring, and can’t imagine a better way to celebrate our sweet girl.
These Triple Lemon Baby Cakes with Lemon Pudding Cream are ultra moist and wonderfully lemony. Tessa fell in love with the vibrant little bites of lemon cake I made for her birthday last year, so I knew I needed to make them for her again, but this time with triple the lemon goodness!
Tessa turned seven today. This photo of her was taken almost a year ago, when our family traveled to Orlando together so I could attend Food Blog Forum at Walt Disney World. While staying at the Grand Floridian (it IS grand!), where the conference was held, we hopped on the monorail for a super short ride over to Magic Kingdom for a day. And anyone who is part of my family knows that you simply must make a stop at the Main Street Confectionary when visiting this awesome park. It’s a tradition, one that I’ve been upholding with my own family since my parents took me there throughout my childhood.
When we walked inside the Main Street Confectionary last spring, Hatti headed straight for the homemade confections under the glass pastry cases, most of which were dipped in chocolate and in the shape of a mouse with two large ears. But Tessa? She found the giant Jelly Belly jelly bean dispenser in the middle of room, and she hung tight. Jelly Belly jelly beans are one of her deepest candy loves.
The Ultimate Lemon Dessert Recipe
And that is exactly why these mini cupcakes are topped with a Jelly Belly jelly bean. No other brand will do. You already guessed that they’re lemon flavored, right?!
- Lemon miniature cupcakes
- “Lemon Drop” Jelly Belly jelly beans
- Lemon pudding cream
The lemon pudding cream swirled onto the tops is really quite lovely, with a super smooth texture and lightly lemon flavor. After I discovered the stabilizing quality that dry pudding mix adds to freshly whipped cream…watch out, World! My family simply adored the chocolate chip angel food cupcakes that I recently made, topped with a vanilla cream that incorporated dry pudding mix. I’ve been waiting for my next opportunity to play around with this concept again. I promise you, this lemon version is awesome, too!
Today also marks the 4th anniversary of a farmgirl’s dabbles. FOUR years, folks! Thanks for hanging out with us. We appreciate each and every one of you!
Triple Lemon Baby Cakes with Lemon Pudding Cream
Ingredients
FOR THE LEMON BABY CAKES
- 3 ½ c. all-purpose flour
- 2 ¼ tsp. baking powder
- ¾ tsp. kosher salt
- 1 c. unsalted butter at room temperature
- 2-1/2 c. sugar
- 4 large eggs at room temperature
- 5 T. freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 2 T. finely grated lemon peel
- lemon yellow food coloring if desired, to enhance the yellow color
- 1-1/2 c. buttermilk
FOR THE LEMON PUDDING CREAM
- 3 c. heavy whipping cream
- 1 3.4 oz. package instant dry lemon pudding mix
- 1-1/4 c. powdered sugar
- fresh lemon zest from one large lemon
- 1 to 2 drops Americolor #107 “Lemon Yellow” if desired
- About 50 lemon jelly beans We used “Lemon Drop” flavor by Jelly Belly.
Instructions
- For the Lemon Baby Cakes
Preheat oven to 350°.
A couple notes: I prefer to use flexible silicone mini muffin pans with no paper liners for this recipe, but you can also prepare metal mini muffin pans with paper liners. Also, I found that there are different sized mini muffin pans out there, so your yield and baking time may vary a bit. The silicone pans I used yield a little bigger mini cupcake than others, which I also happen to like.
Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, beat butter until smooth. Add sugar and beat to blend. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, then the lemon juice, lemon peel, and food coloring. Batter may look curdled, but that’s just fine. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk, in 3 additions. Fill mini cupcake wells or liners a bit more than 3/4-full. Bake cupcakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean. This took about 20 minutes for me, but it will depend on the size of your pans, so pay close attention to your baking time. Cool 10 minutes and remove from pan. Cool completely before adding frosting.
For the Lemon Pudding Cream
Place whipping cream, pudding mix, and powdered sugar into a large chilled mixing bowl. Beat with a chilled whisk attachment until thick and stiff. Add lemon zest and food coloring, mixing to combine thoroughly.
to assemble the triple lemon baby cakes:
With a medium star tip, apply swirls of lemon pudding cream to the tops of each mini cupcake. Top each with a lemon jelly bean. Serve immediately or chill until ready to serve. These freeze well, but wait to add the jelly bean until right before serving.
Happy birthday to your beautiful daughter and congrats on 4 years of blogging! These gorgeous cupcakes are the perfect way to celebrate!
These are perfect for a spring time birthday! So bright and pretty!
A very Happy Birthday to Tessa. She is a special girl with a special mom to make her her special lemon Jelly Belly cupcakes. Yummy!
I’m with Tessa, there are jelly beans and then there are Jelly Bellys. We have a Jelly Belly factory not to far from us and my grandchildren are a great excuse to go take a tour now and then. : )
Tessa also has something in common with one of our presidents…President Ronald Reagan’s favorite jelly beans were Jelly Bellys and he always had a jar of them on his desk in the Capitol. I actually read he had serveral jars of them scattered around wherever he might be, so he could grab a few whenever he had a craving. : )
These are gorgeous!! I would have never thought to put pudding mix in frosting. Happy birthday to your daughter!
Happy Birthday to your daughter and Happy Blogaversary! What a lovely, delicious way to celebrate!!
I’m a lemon lover. I’m sure I’d love one or two of these.
Happy birthday to our sweet Tessa! Love the big smile on her face at the candy store. And congratulations to you, Brenda, on another
adventurous and successful year of blogging. We are so proud of you.
What a sunny post, and a sunny little birthday girl! My youngest loves strawberry, but these might just win her over!
Perfect way to celebrate!
I don’t blame her for loving Jelly Belly. They are the best jelly beans around. She is a cutie, and those wee cakes look delicious and vibrantly yellow. Love!
I love everything lemon and this sounds perfect!
These look so yummy!! Perfect for Spring!
This has my name all over it. I can’t wait to try it.
Happy Birthday to your sweet young lady and happy blog birthday! At her age I stieered clear of anything lemon but boy do I love it now! So pretty for a spring luncheon.
Oh, I like Tessa’s style. Lemon everything, please. These little cakes are pure perfection!
Happy birthday to your beautiful daughter, AND your beautiful blog!! What a fresh, pretty way to celebrate.
Pucker up! Loving these little rays of sunshine and happy birthday to your sweet one!
Happiest of birthdays to your Tessa, and congratulations on 4 years blogging! You help make the world a more delicious place to be!
A girl after my own heart! Happy Birthday to Tessa and Happy Bloggy Birthday to you! Beautiful cupcakes :)
I want your crazy awesome piping skills! These are SO pretty!