These summery cupcakes made with lime infused olive oil will make even the biggest scrooge worship your baking talents.

Dear baking world,

Ahh, the first week of a school. The time of year when people chock-full of anxiety (such as myself) walk around like zombies and bemoan returning to the “real world” after spending a month locked up in my bedroom in the basement. Naturally, my response is to bake and call it a Welcome Back To School Gift for all my friends.

When I was home this weekend perusing my mom’s cupboard, I stumbled across an olive oil called “Persian Lime.” I am a lime/lemon/citrus fiend. I also love oil cupcakes, but I’ve never made cupcakes with olive oil. It would be a double whammy, and hopefully a good one.

So I took my favorite cupcake recipe and put in the Persian Lime Olive Oil and grated some lemon rind into the batter. I’m assuming most of you don’t have Persian Lime Olive Oil, so if you want to make some, I would take regular olive oil and mix it with lemon juice. Let it sit for a bit so the lemon juice can really incorporate, and then use as a replacement for lime olive oil. It should work just fine.

Science note 1: I did not put any lemon juice into the actual batter because it’s highly acidic. These cupcakes do not contain any baking soda, which means that the acidity in the lemon juice would neutralize the leavening powers of the baking powder and my cupcakes would look like flat pancakes. This summer I made a lemon poppyseed cake using this recipe and added a ton of lemon juice. I couldn’t figure out why the cake turned out so flat, but it tasted so good that I passed it off as a pound cake and no one knew the difference.

Science note 2: This recipe also calls for you to mix them with the reverse creaming method. This is my creaming method of choice. First you put the flour, sugar, olive oil, baking powder and vanilla into a bowl and mix it. Then you add each egg then the milk and sour cream. This results in a more velvety cupcake, which I prefer over fluffy. The way this works is that when you put the flour in with the oil, it coats the flour molecules and prevents the gluten from forming later on in the process. It’s quite delicious. And definitely my preferred method.

Science note 3: The fattier the milk, the moister the cupcake. I did not have whole milk, which the recipe called for. So, instead of making a more boring cupcake, I substituted half of the milk in with sour cream. I love sour cream in cake recipes because it makes them super moist and soft.

Then I baked these babies and the smells of summer and sun filled the kitchen. (It’s -6 degrees out, by the way, so this is a total happy moment for me.)

While they cooled, I whipped up a quick batch of lemon cream cheese frosting. Then I frosted them. I used my new tip for the first time and oohed and ahhed over the results. Who knew that I, the self-titled worst froster in the whole entire world, could make such masterpieces?! I’m still surprised.

Enjoy this delicious recipe. I cannot wait to eat the cupcake that I took a large bite out of for photography’s sake.

Happy baking,

Brita