Lynchburg Lemonade Cupcakes! These tart lemon cupcakes are based on the cocktail, and get a little bit of a kick from Jack Daniel’s Whiskey.
Originally Posted September 10, 2009 . Updated 2/22/2021
Back when I posted this recipe - over a decade ago - the entire description was as follows:
As promised, here is much more "guy friendly" cupcake recipe - a great counterpart to our Pink Grapefruit Daiquiri Cakes!.
... yikes.
Much like with the recently updated Pink Grapefruit Daiquiri Cupcakes recipe, I was unwittingly guilty of contributing to the whole “gendered food and drink” nonsense.
Sorry about that!
These cupcakes are great for anyone who likes citrussy baked goods with a bit of a booze kick!
Lynchburg Lemonade Cupcakes
These cupcakes made their debut in my first cookbook - The Spirited Baker - which came out shortly after this post did.
So, I guess they actually made their debut in this post, in terms of publication date.
Anyway, back when I created this recipe, Jack Daniels was my husband’s favourite whiskey.
He’s since moved on to loving whiskeys that smell like absolute death (IMHO), but at the time, this was his drink of choice.
I’d make some sour mix every once in a while, so he could have homemade whiskey sours and Lynchburg Lemonade on occasion.
... so when I decided to write a book on baking with alcohol, obviously I was going to have to design a cupcake on that theme!
The sour mix and zest don’t really contribute much in the way of colour, so I do recommend the addition of a bit of food colouring.
While you can use grocery store food colouring for this, I prefer to use a nice quality gel based colour, such as Americolor (what I used when I was in the USA), or ChefMaster (Which is the option more readily available here!)
How to Make Lynchburg Lemonades
Before I get to that cupcake recipe.... Interested in making the Lynchburg Lemonade cocktail? Let me tell you how!
This is a two step process, with the first step - making the Lemon “Sour” Mix - best to be done ahead of time.
Lemon Sour Mix
One of the ingredients in a Lynchburg Lemonade is sour mix, made from sugar, water, and juice mix.
Historically, that’s usually come as a processed product called “bar mix”, “bar lime”, or “sour mix”.
While that’s gone out of favour with the rise of craft cocktails, I’ve *always* preferred making the homemade version - it isn’t that much work, and tastes so much better!
Usually, that mix is either equal amounts of lemon and lime juices OR a lime-forward mix... but here’s my recipe for Lemon Sour Mix:
1 ½ cups Water
1 ½ cups Granulated Sugar
1 ½ cups Lemon juice *
½ cup Lime Juice
Combine water and sugar in a saucepan. Heat to boiling, stirring until sugar is dissolved.
Remove from heat and cool. Once syrup is cooled, add lemon and lime juices, stir well.
Store unused syrup in fridge for no more than 2 weeks.
* Freshly squeezed juice is always best!
Also, you can play with amounts and type of juices used. Try 1 ½ cups lime juice and ½ cup lemon juice for a great margarita mix. Substitute orange juice for some of the lemon and/or lime juice for an interesting citrus mix.
Lynchburg Lemonade
1 ½ oz Jack Daniel's
1 oz triple sec
2 oz Sour mix
Lemon-lime soda of choice
Fill a tall glass with ice.
Pour whiskey, triple sec, and sour mix over the ice.
Fill glass with lemon-lime soda, and serve.
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Lynchburg Lemonade Cupcakes
Equipment
- Muffin Tin
- Cupcake Liners
Ingredients
- Cupcakes
- 2 cups cake flour
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- 4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 3.5 ounce package instant vanilla pudding mix
- 4 eggs
- ½ cup sprite
- ¼ cup Jack Daniel’s
- ¼ cup Sweet and Sour mix
- 2 tablespoon triple sec
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 1 cup butter melted
- drop or two of yellow food coloring optional
- 1 batch batch Swiss Meringue buttercream
- Splash of Jack Daniel’s
- Juice and zest of 1 lemon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 regular muffin tins with cupcake liners.
- In bowl of stand mixer, stir together dry ingredients.
- Add eggs to dry ingredients, beat until mixture is completely incorporated and smooth.
- With mixer running on low speed, slowly add sprite, Jack Daniel’s, Sweet and Sour mix, Triple Sec, and lemon zest. Turn speed up a little, mix until well incorporated and smooth.
- Carefully add melted butter, and food coloring if you are using it. Continue running the mixer until the butter is completely incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl after a minute or so. Batter should be very smooth.
- Pour into prepared cupcake pans – I like to use an icecream or cookie scoop.
- Bake until fully golden and tester comes out clean and cake springs back – about 20 minutes. Cool completely before frosting.
Frosting
- Prepare Swiss Meringue Buttercream, adding Jack Daniel’s, lemon juice, and zest AFTER the butter has been beat in, and the buttercream has ‘come together’. Continue beating till smooth.
Nutrition
This recipe comes from my first cookbook, The Spirited Baker. It’s FULL of fun, tasty recipes using spirits and liqueurs for flavour – you should check it out:
Combining liqueurs with more traditional baking ingredients can yield spectacular results.Try Mango Mojito Upside Down Cake, Candy Apple Flan, Jalapeno Beer Peanut Brittle, Lynchburg Lemonade Cupcakes, Pina Colada Rum Cake, Strawberry Daiquiri Chiffon Pie, and so much more.
To further add to your creative possibilities, the first chapter teaches how to infuse spirits to make both basic and cream liqueurs, as well as home made flavor extracts! This book contains over 160 easy to make recipes, with variation suggestions to help create hundreds more! Order your hard copy through Amazon, or through any major bookseller.
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