These amazing Cherry Limeade Cupcakes are a flavor explosion and beyond moist! A soft lime infused vanilla cupcake paired with cherry buttercream makes for a fantastic baked creation that will remind you of drinking Cherry Limeade! Don’t miss all my perfect Cupcake recipes!
Cherry Limeade Cupcakes
There are a few “flavors” that come to mind when I think about the warmth and fun of summer. Drinking a refreshing limeade is one of them!
Secret to Real Limeade Cupcakes
Right after the cupcakes come out of the oven, brush on some extra lime juice. I made some with this method and some without and absolutely loved the extra little zing that it gives the final cupcake. If you want extra extra lime juice flavor you can poke holes into your cupcakes with a toothpick before brushing on lime juice.
How to Put Cherries on Buttercream
I recommend removing the cherries from the bottle and placing them on a paper towel prior to placing them on the frosting. Doing that will ensure that the cherry juice doesn’t drip into the frosting and all over the place. I only recommend this for appearance’s sake, if you don’t mind a little maraschino cherry juice dripping, there is no need to take any action before placing on the frosting.
I completely adore these simple and fun cupcakes and hope you will too!
More Cherry Treats
Cherry Limeade Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups (187.5 g) all-purpose flour sifted
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon coarse salt
- ½ cup (1 stick/113 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- ½ cup (122.5 g) whole milk, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 3 tablespoon lime juice, divided
- 1 tablespoon lime zest
Frosting
- 3 cups (375 g) confectioners' sugar
- ½ cup (1 stick/113 g) butter
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- ¼ cup maraschino cherry juice
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350°F. Prepare cupcake pans with baking spray or cupcake liners. (This recipe yielded 15 cupcakes for me.)
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
- In stand mixer with paddle attachment, cream together room temperature butter and sugar on medium high until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low and add in eggs, one at a time and mix until just blended.
- Add in vanilla, 2 tablespoons of lime juice and milk and mix for about 30 seconds on low. Slowly add in dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
- Remove from mixer then fold in lime zest with spatula.
- Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups. Transfer muffin tin to oven and bake until tops are just dry to the touch, 18 to 20 minutes.
- Transfer cupcakes to a cooling rack.
- Use pastry brush to brush remaining 1 tablespoon of lime juice over the top of the cupcake.
- Let cupcakes cool completely and dry before topping with cherry frosting.
Frosting
- In a standing mixer fitted with a whisk, mix together sugar and butter. Mix on low speed until well blended and then increase speed to medium and beat for another 3 minutes.
- Add almond flavoring and cherry juice continue to beat on medium speed for 1 minute more, adding more juice if needed for spreading consistency
Did you make this recipe?
Thank you for making my recipe! You took pictures, right? Well go ahead and post them on Instagram! Be sure to mention me @iambaker and use the hashtag #YouAreBaker.
These cupcakes are so beautiful! I love the soft pink icing!
These cupcakes are adorable!
Thank you!
These are simply beautiful!! I love the lone cherry on top. I love cupcakes, but they’re waaay more fun to eat when they’re elegant like these ones 🙂 I hope one day I can frost things with your skill..I guess I better go make some more cupcakes to practice on!
I am pretty sure I have already seen you pipe out a beautiful cupcake!! 🙂
Now THAT’S a cupcake! Love the summer-inspired flavor!
Thanks Liz!
these look so yummy!
These are beautiful Amanda! And they look so soft and fluffy inside – yum! I’m totally digging the Bakery Crafts site – so many icing tips!!
Well. don’t know what happened. I am not a novice baker. Followed this recipe to the letter and these cupcakes are so heavy and dense they will have to be tossed. The flavors are good but oui…. :o(
Oh dear! So sorry. I have not ever had those results with this recipe! Maybe your baking powder or eggs were bad? Or it was over-mixed? It is worth trying again, the results when it works are a light and delicious cupcake! Truly delicious. 🙂
My icing was very thin. I followed the instructions. Any suggestions?
You can always add more sugar! 🙂
Thank you so much for this recipe i love Cherry limeade and these just made my day 🙂
Amazing flavor to these cupcakes. Although mine too were very dense too. The frosting has great cherry flavor but needed a little more cherry juice to kick it over the top. Mine did separate and a little runny even though it started out fluffy. I’m thinking possibly next time adding a little more powered sugar and see if that helps. Overall will be trying this recipe out again!