Earl Grey Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream

These earl grey cupcakes taste like a sweet celebration. The perfect dessert for small accomplishments, special occasions or everyday cravings.

These cupcakes are so delicious! Light and fresh with the distinct flavor of tea and a hint of lemon. The crumb is moist, the buttercream is just sweet enough and the overall cupcake is worthy of teatime!

It’s hard to believe, but Vintage Kitty turned five this month. Time flies when you’re having fun!

Each year I create a new cake recipe to mark our blogiversary. Last year I made an awesome peanut butter sheet cake and for year three I made a lemon blueberry cake. Year one was an epic chocolate chip layer cake. 

This year the inspiration was tea.  Growing up, I learned to love tea from my mom and Aunt Peachie. Sweet iced tea was a given, but instead of coffee, they both enjoyed a steaming cup of tea in the morning or with dessert. 

It became a ritual for me as well… the comforting aroma and the hot cup warming my hands. To this day, every time it snows I crave a cup so much I can almost taste it!

There’s a tea flavor for every mood and occasion, from quiet moments alone to a formal British tea! 

Celebration cupcakes

Earl grey is my favorite morning tea so I thought I’d make a tea flavored cupcake this year. Plus with the Star Trek reboot, Picard, I’ve had the idea of “Earl Grey, hot” on my mind. “Earl Grey, cupcake” has a ring to it, right? Too bad we can’t replicate dessert!

Especially now. I’m late getting this published because halfway through recipe testing shortages stopped me in my tracks.

Luckily, cake flour has been easier to find than all purpose or bread flour, so I was able to finish the recipe and photograph it.

But as tasty as they are, I’ve been struggling with what to write. It feels so strange to celebrate right now. So, I asked my friends on Facebook for advice. The overwhelming response was now is a time to celebrate!

They reminded me that birthdays, weddings, successes and anniversaries are still happening, even during a time of crisis.

I found their encouragement comforting and it allowed me to feel okay about celebrating Vintage Kitty’s successes and the journey to get to this moment.

Publishing 241 recipes is an accomplishment… and that’s only a small portion of the recipes that I’ve created over the last five years! Plus the awesome crafts, home and garden articles and the long and winding path to become a legit food photographer! 

This journey has challenged me and I feel proud of what I’ve created.

You probably have something to celebrate too, even if doing so feels bittersweet. Maybe your little girl just became a teenager or your spouse retired after a long, successful career.

But you don’t need a huge life event to eat cake! Right now, if you clean out your closet or landscape your garden or just get through the day, it’s a reason to bake.

Stress baking is a thing. Ask Leslie of the blog Stress Baking! If it makes you feel better during difficult times, allow yourself to get lost in a recipe.

And guess what? You don’t have to eat it all yourself! Most of these earl grey cupcakes were gifted to neighbors.

Can you image just Kevin and I at home eating enough cupcakes for a party? Not even our border collie Pixel could exercise us enough to mitigate that disaster! 

Before I leave you with baking tips for these delicious cupcakes, let me say a HUGE THANK YOU to all my fans. It’s been a wonderful five years and you have made the effort worth all the recipe disasters, Google updates and challenges of being a small business owner. Your support is what keeps me blogging! 

Love to all of you!
xoxo
~Kitty

Tips for baking earl grey cupcakes from scratch

• Always bring your cold ingredients to room temperature before making your cake batter. It keeps the cupcake tops from cracking and results in a more even bake.
• Make sure your vegetable oil is fresh! I don’t use vegetable oil very often and I learned the hard way. My first batch of cupcakes tasted off so when I baked them again I checked my ingredients for freshness. Sure enough, my oil was rancid! Rookie mistake!
• I used Twinings Earl Grey. Each tea bag held about a teaspoon of tea leaves. You can use any tea brand you like, whether loose or bagged. You’ll need about 4 tea bags or 4 teaspoons tea leaves.
• I used cake flour because all purpose flour made the cupcakes rubbery. That’s because all purpose flour has a higher protein content than cake flour.
• Be careful not to over mix your cake batter. Too much mixing will also result in a tough cake.
• The batter made 22 perfect cupcakes. The recipe can be stretched to 24 but they won’t completely fill up a standard cupcake liner.
• I decorated them two ways to show they can look fancy or more casual. The top cupcakes were piped using an Atecco 848 tip. The bottom ones were made with an Atecco 809.
• You can also use an offset spatula or an ice cream scoop to frost your cupcakes too.
• A Zeroll scoop makes portioning the cupcakes easy and keeps the cupcakes even in size. 
• To make these cupcakes extra moist, I drizzled the cupcakes with a tea simple syrup. Bakeries use this trick to make cakes last longer and it really works!

Love baking from scratch? Check out all our cake recipes!