Lemon cupcakes with blackberry buttercream

Today, I'd like to share with you a fantastic creation I made for a barbecue last week... I had some extra blackberries, so I wanted to use them.  I decided that blackberry and lemon would be a stupendous combo and headed over to Google to get some ideas.

While talking cupcakes with a friend (that's what friends do, right?) she pointed me to a recipe for Lemon Raspberry Cupcakes that just sounded divine.  I decided to use this as my base recipe.  I ended up following the recipe pretty closely... just subbing in seedless blackberry jam instead of raspberry.

Making these cupcakes was pretty easy - especially with the help of my Kitchen-Aid.  Seriously, bless the person who invented the stand mixer.  (Per Wikipedia, that would be Herbert Johnson.  So... thanks, Herbert.)  Anyway, the best part of these cupcakes?

When filling the liners with batter, you get to add a teaspoon of jam.  Then you cover it with more batter.  It's a cupcake with a surprise inside!  I couldn't be happier... I am a frequent reader and ardent fan of Bake It in a Cake, so this was right up my alley.  I will warn you - the jam ended up sinking into the bottom of the cupcake, even though I put a lot of batter in the bottom of the liner.  In retrospect, I realize I should have spread the jam more evenly so that it wouldn't sink as much.  Next time...

Anyway, while these were baking I whipped up the blackberry buttercream - it was easy and absolutely delicious.  I decided to just spread it on with a spatula (my hands were tired from piping some buttercream onto the other batch of cupcakes I'd made that night).  I then topped it off with a blackberry and a little bit of the lemon peel as a garnish.  Here's the finished product (complete with cute cupcake liners I found in the dollar bin at Michael's):

If you want to give these a try (and I would imagine you could swap in any flavor of jam for the frosting, leading to a variety of delicious results), visit Bakergirl for the recipe.

I did make one substitution, as I had no buttermilk in the fridge.  No problem... being a culinary MacGyver is all about the substitutions.

If you don't have buttermilk available, it's an easy fix... you can mix lemon juice or distilled white vinegar with regular milk to make your own buttermilk.   I decided to use lemon juice to make mine, as I figured a little extra lemon flavor couldn't hurt!  To make one cup of buttermilk, add one tablespoon of lemon juice to your measuring cup, and then add milk until the total liquid equals one cup.  You can adjust quantities as needed.  Let it sit for 5 minutes, and voila!  Buttermilk.

I know I promised you some M&Ms cupcakes next, but I may share the goodies I'm making for the Fourth of July first.  I'll be baking them tomorrow, so stay tuned...