Inspired/prompted by the daughter of a faculty member who works at my college, I recently whipped up two batches of comparably delicious lemon cupcakes. Let's refer to this colleague's daughter as "M." M and her dad came into my office the day before, seeking samples of cupcakes from my blog. Their family had recently returned from sabbatical, and the faculty member saw my cupcake blog from abroad.
Seeing no cupcakes within the immediate vicinity, M requested (very politely and very kindly, I might add) that I prepare a batch to celebrate their homecoming. I was very happy to oblige her!
"What kind would you like me to make?" I asked. "And, remember, I make two batches: one with gluten and one without. If you're to be my official taste-tester, you have to try both. Are you on board?"
M eagerly nodded her agreement, and asked me to procure lemon cupcakes. I promised her (and her dad) that lemon cupcakes would be waiting for them at my office the next day.
So, that night, I embarked on a search for a simple yet tasty recipe for lemon cake that I thought could translate nicely in both gluten and gluten-free formats.
And, I found one! I printed it out, baked both batches, and declared them to both be delicious.
The only problem is that I tossed the recipe after I was done (it had batter drippings, sugar, lemon juice and all sorts of other stuff on it, making it a tad messy), and my subsequent web searches have not uncovered it again.
I am so annoyed!
But let me tell you the key ingredients that were included: 3 oz cream cheese and 2 tablespoons of freshly-grated lemon zest went into each batch, along with flour (of course,) eggs, and vanilla extract.
For the gluten-free batch, I used Thomas Keller's Cup 4 Cup gluten-free flour blend, which I used previously in my Hershey's Cocoa recipe for the July 4 holiday.
Both the gluten and gluten-free batches whipped up easily, and rose beautifully in the oven. As has been the case in my other gluten-free batches, however, the cupcakes deflated a bit once they were out of the oven. The gluten cupcakes retained their puffy shape somewhat when they cooled.
Here are the baked batches, side by side. The gluten-free batch is on the right. They both look extraordinarily similar.
I made a different topping for each of the cupcakes. The gluten batch was topped with a whipped cream and drizzled with a homemade lemon curd. The gluten-free batch was topped with a lemon curd infused whipped cream.
Here is the gluten batch, with topping, dissected:
I took samples from both batches to the office the next day and, as anticipated, M and her dad came by. They sampled both. I asked for a verdict.
M declared the gluten-free cupcakes to be much better than the gluten batch. Wow! Her dad liked the topping on the gluten-free cupcakes better, but preferred the gluten cupcakes for taste.
Next time, I'm going to keep much better track of the actual recipe used.
