Lemon Curd Filled Cupcakes

I love lemons. I put lemon in my tea, squeeze lemon on fish and chicken and of course, lemon rocks out a dessert any day.

The above cupcakes were inspired by this stuff:

We recently had a Trader Joe's open here in town and while I was there I found Imported English Lemon Curd. I could put a straw in this and go nuts. It is SO good. Yes, I could make my own lemon curd, but when it's this good at $2.99 a jar, why go to that trouble?

I also recently got this handy little gadget.

It's a cupcake corer. It remove the middle of a cupcake to make room for fillings. How fun is that? 

I decided to put these two items to the test and make some lemon curd filled cupcakes with lemon butter cream. A friend of mine had a daughter come into town for a visit and she loves lemon desserts. I thought these would be the perfect "Welcome Home" treat!

I started with a lemon cupcake. I used a white cake mix and added a couple tablespoons of lemon baking emulsion and a tablespoon of lemon zest. Baking emulsions are fantastic. Extracts contain alcohol. When baked, the alcohol evaporates taking some of the flavor with it. With emulsions, the flavor is "encased" in gum which helps it hold it's qualities. I am a big fan. Especially of this brand. I use the Princess flavor in a lot of my baked goods and always in my vanilla buttercream icing. A blogger I follow uses the Butter flavor in lots of stuff and she swears it makes a pie crust to die for.

Next, I cored out the middle of the cakes.

Mini Mac especially enjoyed this part. When using the corer this is what happens:

So you end up with a pile of these.

Lemony bites of heaven.

Next, I spooned some curd into each cupcake...

...and topped them with some lemon buttercream.

I just made a basic buttercream icing and added 3 tablespoons of lemon juice and tablespoon of lemon zest.

These cupcakes are so refreshing especially after chilling in the fridge for a while. Not to mention they are pretty simple to make. 

I just love the cupcake corer and I can't wait to see what other cupcake creations I can come up with!