Prickly Pear Cupcakes

Prickly pear cupcakes bring my week of prickly pear eating to a close. While I strongly preferred my prickly pear lemon bars to the prickly pear cupcakes, one friend said that I was doing something akin to comparing a sandwich to ravioli - they are too different to compare. Other friends couldn't weigh in on whether they liked the the prickly pear cupcakes better or worse than the the prickly pear lemon bars because I hoarded all of the lemon bars for myself! They did have some very positive things to say about the prickly pear cupcakes, though:

• "Heaven!"
• "I would definitely buy one if they were for sale somewhere."
• "The only thing that would make this better would be chocolate."

OK - those last two quotes were from the same person I talked about in the first paragraph - but they were good quotes. I had to use them.

The other quote that multiple people had, including myself, was that the prickly pear cupcakes were:

• "Generically fruity."

If I hadn't mentioned the fact that they contained prickly pear, people would not have been able to identify what the fruit flavor was.

The Prickly Pear Cupcake Recipe

The coolest thing about the prickly pear cupcake recipe was the bubblegum-pink batter. It was so fun! Too bad the cupcake didn't stay that color after baking. This is a Cupcake Project original recipe.

Makes about 14 cupcakes

• 2 C flour
• 1 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 3/4 C butter, room temperature
  
• 1 C + 3 T sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 C plain yogurt
• 1/4 t lemon extract
• 1 t vanilla extract
  
• 1/3 C prickly pear juice (You can easily make prickly pear juice with a prickly pear and a food processor or blender. Simply Recipes has a great tutorial on how to make prickly pear juice.)
• 1/4 C lemon juice

1. With a fork, whisk flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl.
2. Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl for 1 minute until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in eggs, yogurt, and extracts until blended.
4. Combine prickly pear juice and lemon juice in a small bowl.
   
5. Alternately mix in the flour mixture and juice to the sugar/butter mixture in three additions, beginning and ending with flour.
6. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full.
   
7. Bake at 350 F for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out of the cupcake clean.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting with Prickly Pear Lemon Bars

You could top the prickly pear cupcakes with a basic lemon cream cheese frosting. That would be perfectly tasty. But, if you just happen to have some extra prickly pear lemon bars laying around, you can blend them and mix them into the frosting for added zing! That's what I did, and as you can see in the photo, the prickly pear lemon bars integrated into the frosting so well that no one even knew they were there.

• 1 8oz package of cream cheese, room temperature
  
• 1/4 C butter, room temperature
• 4 C powdered sugar, sifted
• 1/2 t lemon extract
• 1 1/2 t prickly pear juice (Optional. I only added this to give the frosting a mild pink color. It did not affect the taste at all. You could use food coloring or skip this entirely.)
  
• 1 C pulverized prickly pear lemon bars (Optional.)

1. Mix butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy.
2. Add in powdered sugar one cup at a time. You can add more or less to get your desired level of sweetness and stiffness.
3. Add lemon extract and, optionally, the prickly pear juice.
4. If you choose to do so, mix in the prickly pear lemon bars. It could also be fun to sprinkle them on top.

Other Cupcakes With Prickly Pear and Lemon

I want to give a quick shout out to Keesha - The Prissy Cook. Keesha is a fellow prickly pear lover and cupcake baker. Around this time last year, Keesha made lemon cupcakes with prickly pear frosting. She was able to find a prickly pear syrup that made her frosting a gorgeous pink color. Be sure to check out her prickly pear cupcake post for a different take on the prickly pear lemon cupcake and also to read about her amusing tale of transporting cupcakes by bike.

Prickly Pear Lemon Bars

Prickly pear lemon bars are sweet and tangy and have a buttery crust that I could eat all by itself. They are a variation on my favorite lemon lime squares. While I wouldn't make the prickly pear bars over the lemon lime squares every time, they are great for something different and the pink color is so striking!

Why Prickly Pear Lemon Bars


As a pregnant foodie, I often find myself at restaurants with top-tier bartenders and have recently begun to challenge them to make me tasty virgin drinks. Last night at Monarch, I had a drink with almond syrup, pear nectar, pomegranate, and lemon that was like nothing I had ever tasted before - in a good way. But (more relevant to this post), earlier in the week I visited a St. Louis restaurant, Agave, that had several virgin drink options on the menu. The bartender, Keith, recommended a drink that featured prickly pear and lemonade. He gave me a shot of the prickly pear juice on its own to entice me. Loved it! I proceeded to order the drink - which rocked my world. I decided right then that prickly pear would be the flavor of the week. Check out the cupcake version of these bars - prickly pear cupcakes.

Prickly Pear Lemon Bar Recipe

The prickly pear lemon bar recipe that I came up with was based on a recipe called Lemony Lime Squares that I originally found in a newspaper (the clipping is so old that I can't tell which paper) as an adaptation from a recipe in the book Low-fat & Luscious Desserts by the American Heart Association. The recipe says that it makes sixteen servings, but that depends on how big you cut your bars or squares. I think that you would probably want to double the recipe if you were truly serving sixteen people. Here is my adaptation:

Cookie base

• 1 C all-purpose flour
• 1/4 C sugar
• 1/4 finely chopped pecans
• 1/4 C butter, softened

Topping

• 2/3 C sugar
• 2 large egg whites
• 2 T all-purpose flour
• 3 T lemon juice
• 1/2 t lemon zest
• 3 T prickly pear juice (You can easily make prickly pear juice with a prickly pear and a food processor or blender. Simply Recipes has a great tutorial on how to make prickly pear juice.)
• 1/2 t baking powder
• 2 T powdered sugar (optional)

1. Prepare the cookie base
1. Mix flour, sugar, pecans, and butter until crumbly.
2. Coat an 8-inch square baking dish with cooking spray or butter and press the mixture evenly on the bottom of the dish.
3. Bake at 350 F for 15 minutes.

2. Prepare the topping
1. Beat all topping ingredients except powdered sugar. Mixture will be thin.
2. Pour over hot crust.

3. Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes or until topping is set.
4. Allow to cool before cutting.
5. If you'd like, top the bars with powered sugar.

Finding Prickly Pear


Prickly pear is not easy to find in St. Louis. Some of my friends from other parts of the country have informed me that it's practically a weed where they live. I thought for sure that our international supermarket would carry prickly pear, but they said they wouldn't carry it until next month. Then, I checked a Mexican grocery and they told me to check the Asian grocery. Surprisingly, I found it at Whole Foods. I shop there almost daily, but I had never noticed prickly pears so that was the last place that I looked for them.

If you can't find fresh prickly pear fruit and I've got you craving prickly pear, you may be able to find some other prickly pear products.

I was informed by my Twitter friend c_ellis that our local grocery store, Schnucks, sometimes carries prickly pear sorbet, so your local store might, too.

Bolthouse Farms makes a Prickly Pear Cactus Lemonade which will give you a taste of the flavor, but I found it to be way too sweet.

Lastly, you could always order one of the many prickly pear products available online. You can choose from syrups, jellies and jams, and candies.

One More Photo of the Prickly Pear Lemon Bars, Just for Kicks