Lemon Raspberry Cupcakes
Light and moist lemon cupcakes topped with an easy raspberry buttercream frosting. These Lemon Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream Frosting are absolutely delicious!
I think cupcakes have to be one of my favorite things to create and photograph for this blog. Sadly, it’s been over 5 months since the last time I posted a cupcake recipe. I guess other things — like these brownie bites and no-bake cheesecakes — have been on my mind lately.
But today I’m changing that with these cupcakes. The idea for these lemon cupcakes came from my Lemon Raspberry Cheesecake Squares, which happen to be one of the most popular recipes (and one of my favorite recipes) on the blog.
I love lemon desserts and I know a lot of you do too, but they’re even better when paired with berries! So, I decided to make these lemon cupcakes and top them with a delicious and easy raspberry buttercream frosting.
Ingredients for This Recipe
These lemon raspberry cupcakes use primarily pantry staples, plus a few special ingredients. Here’s what you’ll need to make the cupcakes and raspberry frosting:
- All-purpose flour: Measure your flour correctly with the spoon and level method. In other words, stir the flour around, spoon it into the measuring cup, then level the top off with the back of a knife.
- Baking powder: Gives the cupcakes a little lift in the oven.
- Salt: Balances out the flavors in the cupcake batter.
- Unsalted butter: I recommend using unsalted butter since the amount of salt in salted butters can vary between different brands. If using salted butter, reduce the salt by 1/4 teaspoon per stick of butter in the recipe.
- Granulated sugar: Sweetens the cupcakes.
- Eggs: Should be room temperature before mixing into the batter.
- Vanilla extract: Use pure vanilla extract for the best flavor.
- Lemon juice and zest: The lemon juice and lemon zest in this recipe add a beautiful light lemon flavor. It’s not too overpowering, but you can definitely taste the lemon in these cupcakes.
- Milk: I recommend using whole milk in this recipe. 2% should work as well, but avoid fat-free milk.
- Sour cream: The first time I tested these cupcakes I tried using just sour cream with the lemon juice, but they were a little too dense. So I adjusted the recipe by reducing the sour cream and adding some milk to make them soft and light, which worked perfectly.
- Powdered sugar: This is used to sweeten and thicken the frosting.
- Heavy cream: Just a splash is needed to loosen up the frosting.
- Raspberry preserves: Both raspberry preserves and raspberry jam will work in this recipe.
How to Make Lemon Cupcakes with Raspberry Frosting
The flour is mixed together with a little baking powder and salt. Simple so far, right? For the wet ingredients, you’ll start out with some butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract. Once everything is mixed together you’ll mix in some lemon juice, lemon zest, milk, and sour cream.
Divide the batter between cupcake liners and bake until done. Don’t overfill your cupcake liners. This recipe will make 15 to 16 cupcakes, I always end up with exactly 15 cupcakes when I make these. Filling the cupcake liners too full will cause them to overflow and you’ll end up with muffin tops.
Let the lemon cupcakes cool completely before making the frosting and topping the cupcakes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I Use Fresh Raspberries in the Frosting?
I’ve tried fresh berries in frosting and it tends to curdle, which isn’t so pretty. I really wanted to try out freeze-dried raspberries in this frosting, but I could not find them ANYWHERE.
After almost ordering a pack online, I decided if I couldn’t find them that easily then there’s a good chance a lot of you wouldn’t be able to either. So, I stuck with using raspberry preserves in the frosting.
Can I Make a Layered Cake with This Recipe?
Yes, if you double the cupcake batter and multiply the frosting recipe by 1.5. This will be enough for a two-layer cake.
How Do You Store Them?
You may store these cupcakes in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
Baking Tips
- One of the most important tips I can give when making cupcakes from scratch is to measure your flour correctly. You want to avoid using the measuring cup to scoop the flour out of the container because you can end up with too much in your recipe. Measuring your flour correctly is crucial to making soft, light, delicious cupcakes. I explain how to spoon and level flour in more detail in this post.
- For the best texture and flavor, always use full-fat ingredients. They do make a difference!
- The frosting recipe will make enough to give these cupcakes a nice frosting just like the pictures. If you prefer less frosting, feel free to cut it in half.
More Easy Cupcake Recipes to Try!
- Carrot Cake Cupcakes
- Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting
- Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
- Vanilla Cupcakes
- Chocolate Oreo Cupcakes
Lemon Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream
Ingredients
For the lemon cupcakes:
- 1 and 1/2 cups (190 grams) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (115 grams) unsalted butter , softened
- 1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3 tablespoons (45 ml) fresh lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons lemon zest (about 2 medium lemons)
- 1/2 cup (120 ml) whole milk
- 1/4 cup (60 grams) sour cream
For the raspberry buttercream:
- 1 cup (230 grams) unsalted butter , softened
- 3 and 1/2 cups (420 grams) powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon (15 ml) heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup raspberry preserves (or jam)
- tiny pinch of salt
Instructions
To make the lemon cupcakes:
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C). Line two muffin pans with 15 cupcake liners and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large mixing bowl using a hand-held mixer, beat the butter and granulated sugar together until light and fluffy. Mix in each egg one at a time, then the vanilla extract, making sure to mix well after each ingredient. Add the lemon juice and lemon zest, mix until well combined, then mix in the milk and sour cream until fully combined.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined, making sure not to overmix the batter. Use a rubber spatula or spoon to turn the batter and make sure everything is well combined.
- Evenly distribute the batter between all 15 cupcake liners, making sure to only fill them a little over halfway full. Bake in batches at 350°F for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean and the tops spring back when lightly touched.
- Remove from the oven, then carefully remove the cupcakes from the pan and transfer to a wire rack to cool.
To make the raspberry buttercream:
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large mixing bowl using a hand-held mixer, beat the butter until smooth. Mix in the powdered sugar, heavy cream, and vanilla extract until well combined. Add in the raspberry preserves (or jam) and salt and continue mixing until fully combined.
- Frost the cooled cupcakes as desired.
I’ve become famous at my middle school with these cupcakes! They are requested for every bake sale and are always the first to go!
So happy to hear that, Amy!
Hi! For the buttercream I was planning on making homemade jam, my recipe is just sugar and raspberries, so I cut out some sugar, make it like normal OR could I just use puréed raspberries?
I wouldn’t recommend using just pureed raspberries, by themselves they tend to be too acidic and can cause the frosting to curdle. As long as your jam is thicker like regular jam, that should be fine to use.
Yoir recipe looks great. One quick question is if you used the preserves did you emove seeds? If so how? Thanks
I don’t remove the seeds, I just leave them.
I made these exactly as stated last month, and they were incredible!!! They are one of my favorite flavor combos for summer and these recipes are PERFECT! I just made the cupcakes again and used vanilla buttercream for a friend, and I tried a few (of course) and the lemon cupcakes are just sooooo moist and flavorful without being overbearing.
I want to make a strawberry buttercream, but maybe not use the freeze-dried strawberry recipe you have on your site. Could I just swap out the rasp preserves/jam for strawberry preserves/jam in this recipe?
Yes, you could swap out the raspberry jam for strawberry!
Excellent recipe! I didn’t try the frosting (this time) but used a simple lemon glaze since I made them in my fancy new baking mold – leaves/acorns/pumpkins. Looked too cute to cover up. Will keep this as my regular lemon cupcake recipe. Thank you!
Hi Danielle! I’m baking cupcakes for a dog themed charity bake sale. Will the icing hold enough to pipe out a poodle face?! I’m worried it’s too soft from the comments. These look delish, love the flavor combo.
Hi, Natalie! This one would be too soft for that. I have used my regular buttercream frosting to pipe grass on a cake before and it worked well. Here’s a link to that recipe, I would use 1-2 tablespoons of cream just so it’s a little stiffer too.
I was just looking at this recipe to make cupcakes for me and my family, but something kind of confused me. Why would you put lemon juice and milk in the cake. (Wouldn’t that just curtle the milk?)
The lemon juice adds more lemon flavor to the cupcakes. The batter may curdle a little, but it doesn’t affect the texture/taste of the baked cupcakes at all 🙂
I was thinking about adding the lemon curd to the cupcakes. Should this be done before or after they bake. This is my first time baking cupcakes from scratch and I tend to do best with exact instructions.
I wouldn’t recommend adding it to the cupcake batter. You can bake the cupcakes, cut a small hole in the center of each one, and fill them with lemon curd.
My wet ingredients also curdled, but after adding dry ingredients, the batter was fine. The cupcakes seemed really dense to me. I was afraid to leave cupcakes out overnight because of the frosting being so soft, so I stored in the refrigerator overnight (in container) and they were really dry and dense the next day. I was hoping for a very light and moist cupcake. I loved the lemon and raspberry flavors together. Will try this recipe again.
Hi, Cathy! I have a lemon blueberry cupcake recipe that uses buttermilk and is a little lighter, here’s a link to that recipe. You can just omit the blueberries.
I made these and followed the directions to a T but they didn’t come out. The cupcakes didn’t really rise and they were super “holey” with a weird texture. Not sure what happened ?. I’ll definitely try this recipe again to see if I can do it right!
Sorry to hear that, Jess. Did you make sure your butter was at room temperature first? Did you make any adjustments to the recipe?
My batter looked like it curdled after i added the lemon juice and zest, how do avoid this?
That’s normal and won’t affect the cupcakes.
Hi Danielle and fans,
I follow many bloggers when it comes to food and desserts and cakes but you are something else! I tried this recipe cos it’s different and I love lemon and it was just perfect! I did only use 1T pf rind though but it was amazing.
My piping was not so perfect but I’m no professional but I will learn one day. I halved the icing recipe and used raspberry jam. Should have definitely left it in the fridge longer though but will when I make them again.
This was the first attempt at one of your recipes and won’t be the last. Thank you so much for all your recipes and guidance <3
love from sunny Durban, South Africa xx
Thank you, Nafisa! I’m glad the cupcakes turned out great for you!
So I just made the frosting for a chocolate cake, and I CANNOT STOP licking the bowl. I added a bit extra of the jam, but it is PERFECT. Thank you for sharing!
I’ve been testing out many recipes for lemon cupcakes/cake with raspberry buttercream for the last week just to be ahead of the game for my daughters baby shower on Sunday June 9th… Its her first baby so I wanted everything to be perfect and let me say that this is by far is the yummiest lemon cake and I’ve ever had. The buttercream didn’t turn out like I thought it would. I gave it a taste and I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. So thinking I was all done mixing it I realized I still had 1/2 cup of the powered sugar left to mix in, well now I think it’s too sweet and the consistency isn’t thick enough to pipe it…
I just put it in the fridge hoping it will thicken up, but if it doesn’t, do you have any suggestions as to how to make it less sweet and thicker for piping?
So regardless of how my buttercream turned out, ( I haven’t given up yet ) your recipe deserves 5+ stars…
I hope to hear from you soon, at least before Saturday evening so I can have everything done and ready to go for Sunday’s shower
Thank you
Katherine
Hi, Katherine! Glad you liked the cupcake recipe! This buttercream is a little softer since it has jam in it, but refrigerating it will help make it easier to pipe. I have a strawberry buttercream recipe in my post on how to make buttercream that uses freeze-dried strawberries. If you have time and want a thicker frosting, you can use that recipe but use freeze-dried raspberries instead.
I haven’t tried baking these yet but I’d like to know if anyone has tried doubling the cupcake recipe successfully. I have a group that wasn’t raspberry frosting and my dad would prefer lemon on lemon (so I will have to find a lemon frosting recipe!!)
I haven’t, but I do think it would be fine. Just be careful not to over mix the batter. I have a lemon cream cheese frosting recipe in my lemon blueberry cupcake post.
Did doubling the recipe work well?
I think it should be fine, just make sure not to over mix the batter and you should be good.
I was concerned about over mixing the batter so I actually made it in two separate batches (to make double the amount of cupcakes). If anyone else has tried doubling please share your experience as I am looking to turn this into a cake!
I think it would be fine to double it. Just make sure not to mix it too much and you should be good.
What size cake does this make (8in, 9in)?
Also, did you use seedless raspberry preserves/jam?
It will make either an 8 or 9-inch cake. I didn’t use a seedless preserve or jam, but it would be fine to use one.
Could I use raspberry emulsion for the frosting? A friend gave me the emulsion and I have no idea.
Is it an extract or something else?
If I fill the cupcakes with lemon curd and use blueberry frosting do you think the lemon would overpower the frosting or not.
I think it kind of depends on who you’re serving them to. I really love lemon, so I think it would be fine! You could always test a cupcake with it first and see what you think too.
I made these as mini cupcakes (and halved the recipe) and they turned out delicious. I made and frosted the cupcakes the night before. They turned out a bit dense (not sure if I served them too cold) but everyone commented on the great lemon flavor and raved about the raspberry icing.
I Love all of your recipes. Can u make a strawberry shortcake cupcake next?
Thank you, Ashley! I’ll definitely add it to my list of recipes to work on.
I would love to make this for my friend who’s turning 30! She loves anything lemon and this looks like a great recipe. I was wondering whether you have any experience with the giant cupcake pan by Wilton and whether you know if this recipe will be able to fill the giant cupcake pan? I think 10 cups of batter is usually enough but idk whether I should double this recipe (and/or frosting) or not. TIA!
Hi, Hilda! I am familiar with the pan you’re referring to, but I’m not sure exactly how many cups of batter this recipe makes. I would probably double the recipe and you can make cupcakes with any leftover batter and frosting. Hope that helps!
I made the cupcake cake and it turned out well! For anyone else interested, I doubled the cake batter but kept the same amount of frosting and that makes one giant cupcake with very little to spare. It’s pretty tasty!
Thanks for sharing, Hilda! Glad to hear that it turned out well!
Would you recommend turning these into a cake? If so, what would the new ratios have to be? I made the recipe as cupcakes and would now love to make it as a birthday cake!
You could turn it into a cake, this recipe would probably just make one cake layer. If you want a two layer cake, I would double the cupcake recipe and increase the frosting recipe by 1 and 1/2.
I just made these cupcakes for my son and I. This recipe was so easy to follow and the cupcakes and frosting taste amazing. I will definitely be making these again!!!!
I came across this recipe when looking for lemon cupcakes and I was sold on the pairing with the raspberry buttercream, along with the fresh lemon in the cake. I made them today and it was the perfect blend of lemon and raspberry. The recipe made plenty of frosting, so some of my cupcakes may have a little too much, but it tastes really good. Now to get them out of the house to keep me from eating them all!
So glad you liked the cupcakes, Tracy!
This recipe was great and didn’t take too much time. The only reason it’s 4 stars not 5 is that the cupcakes had an almost bitter after taste. We think it might be the zest, so next time we probably will only add half the amount of zest. Overall great texture and the frosting was absolutely delicious!
Sorry to hear that! Did you double check that you used the right amount of baking powder? Too much can sometimes give baked goods a bitter taste too.
Zesting too far into the white part will cause a lot of bitterness
I’m not sure what I did wrong but my wet ingredients mixture were very clumpy. Do buttermilk and eggs need to be in room temperature? If so, it’s not mentioned in the recipe. I ended up warming up my mixture in a microwave…. still haven’t tasted them yet but not very excited about the result.
It’s best to use room temperature ingredients if you’re using softened butter, but even if you don’t the mixture shouldn’t be super lumpy. Did you make sure to cream your butter and sugar together thoroughly before adding the other ingredients?
Would I be able to use either whole milk for the frosting? or heavy cream for the cupcakes? sounds like an awesome recipe but I dont want to waste either or.
You can use whole milk in place of the heavy cream for the frosting.
Do you know how much almond flour I could use instead of regular flour?
Almond flour is much different than all-purpose flour and it would change the texture of the cupcakes. I would stick with all-purpose flour for this recipe.
Just made these for my wife no reason. Came.out perfect. I would make half the icing next time which would.have been more than enough. Definitely would use the preserves. Thanks
So glad the cupcakes turned out great for you, Craig!
These look yummy! I usually have luck finding freeze dried fruit at Target. Though, they don’t always have a huge variety. Recently, I made these vegan cupcakes and I used freeze dried strawberries to make the frosting: https://www.bakesandblunders.com/vegan-chocolate-cupcakes/. The great thing about freeze dried fruit is you don’t have to use as much powdered sugar to get a stiff consistency. BUT raspberry jam also makes a super yummy frosting! Plus, why do raspberries and lemon just work? They are so good together. Anyways, I’m done yammering. Great recipe!
I’ll have to check at Target! I’ve been able to find quite a few options at my grocery store, but the raspberries are always hard to find. And great minds think alike on the cupcakes! I just recently took some new photos of my chocolate covered strawberry cupcakes and used freeze-dried strawberries for the frosting. 🙂
Try Trader Joe’s for freezes dried raspberries!