What’s better in the middle of the cold, dreary, dark, wet, ugly, yucky, winter months than a cupcake that screams SUMMER!?

I could have kept going with nasty winter adjectives, but I’m too busy trying to practice positive thoughts.  I’ll let you know how that works out. Hah.

We Canadians up here in good old Canada, have been having quite the snow situation in the last couple of weeks.  For a while there, winter was over and spring was on it’s way.  I even heard a Robin one morning.  I was happy when I heard that Robin, and I hate birds!  Now, where is that poor Robin?  Probably buried in some snow somewhere, frozen to death. 🙁

To help get out of the Winter Blues I have been experiencing, Lemon Raspberry Cupcakes were on the agenda!  With thoughts of summer in my head, I started to bake.

Oh summer, please come soon.  I’ve had it with shovelling and wearing boots. Please Mother Nature?

Warm up that zester for this recipe.   One of the greatest purchases I have made (in regards to cooking utensils . . . because we’re not here talking about my $500 Coach bag that I got for $120 at the Vegas Outlets) is one of the small, narrow zester’s you can see in the picture.   So handy for recipes that require a lot of lemon, lime or orange zest.

Mix flour, butter, sugar, lemon, vanilla and lemon juice and you get lemony goodness!

Another great kitchen tool that I have is one that I got as a gift!  It’s a very handy cupcake corer!  All you have to do is insert it into cooled cupcakes, twist and pull it out.

To remove the cake from the corer, all you have to do is push the little handle down on the top, and out pops the cored out piece of cupcake!  Don’t forget to keep those cores.  You can use them again when you have filled the cupcakes to cover up the filling.

Little cored cupcakes all in a row!

Drop in a raspberry into the core and then add the lemon curd on top.  Cut the piece of cupcake that came out of the corer into a lid, and place it back on top of the filling.  This seals the filling in.

Whip up your favourite Raspberry Icing, or here to see mine, add lemon zest to top and dig in.

I’m starting to feel better already!  Six more weeks of winter?  I hope not.  But, with each snow fall and shovelling that I endure, maybe a cupcake is in order?!

What do you do to beat the Winter Blues?

They are finally packaged up, and ready to fly out the door!  I’ve been waiting for this day for quite some time now.  Here are the pictures of me saying good bye.