Key Lime to Your Heart

This cupcake will romance it's way through your mouth straight to your heart.  You'll really fall in love with this little tangy treat.  This week's cupcake is a Key Lime cupcake with cream cheese frosting and sprinkled generously with graham crackers.  To make this little limey cake beautiful we added a little piece of the lime for decoration not so much for eating.

The cake itself isn't overly lime-tasting and the cream cheese frosting on top adds the sweet that you need for the tart.  It's like the yin to the cupcake's yang.  A little crunch on top and your whisked away to a little bistro table eating your key lime pie dessert, in the Florida Keys of course.  This cupcake is a little smaller than usual because it is a little richer and needed to be smaller so nobody gets hurt during consumption.

We used fresh key lime juice and fresh key lime zest in the cupcake which made it not rise as much and the consistency is a little more dense than usual but the flavor is delicious.  We listened to a Benny Goodman record while baking these cupcakes so they have a little sass in them.

The recipe below will yield about 36 cupcakes so if you want less cut the recipe in half.  Preheat the oven for 350 and cook for 12-15 minutes or until your toothpick comes out squeaky clean.

Vegan Key Lime Cupcake


4 cups of flour (we used self rising flour again)
1 1/2 cup of butter (we used earth balance)
2 1/2 cups of sugar (we used sugar in the raw - yum yum)
2 1/2 tablespoons of key lime zest
1/2 cup of oil
1/2 cup of key lime juice (freshly pressed - thank you Tina B. for the best citrus press ever!)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/4 cup soy milk
1 1/4 teaspoon cider vinegar

**if you don't use self rising flour you will need 1 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

mix soy milk and vinegar in a bowl and set aside for a few minutes, sift the flour and set aside, beat together sugar, oil, butter, key lime juice, zest for about 2-3 minutes, mix flour and soy milk a little at a time until fully mixed together and you have a good consistency

Cream Cheese Frosting


1/2 cup of cream cheese (vegan of course)
1/2 cup of butter (earth balance)
4 cups of powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla

mix together butter and cream cheese until creamy, add the sugar about 1 cup at a time until mixed add vanilla at the end

Crush some graham crackers to sprinkle on top.  Don't crush them into dust, but large enough to give the eater a bit of crunch with each bite.

Use some of the left over limes to cut for decoration.  It's just so cute.  See...

Hopefully you will have as much fun as we did making them and even more fun eating them.  We tried one and then another and then another and another just to make sure they were good.  They are, we've confirmed.  So kick back, put your feet up, have some cupcakes and relax.

Tip of the day: if your towels have plastic fibers in them do not leave on top of the hot oven.

So until next time sugar kisses and cupcake dreams.