It's almost summer, and for me, that means signing up for summer camps. My little sister was nervous about starting girl scout camp, and I was talking about how great it was. I mentioned how at girl scout camp I had made food inside bananas and oranges, and I thought that I should totally do that! We didn't have any bananas or oranges at my house though, so I decided to use the lemons we had on hand. Plus, I already had a pretty great lemon bread recipe of my own.

The main wow factor is that these are baked inside of a lemon. It looks really cool, and of course, it tastes good too. In theory, you could do it with any fruit with a thick skin, and I plan to experiment further. As of now though, you can learn to make lemons!

Step 1: Get Your Stuff.

Preheat your oven to 300ºF

You will need the following

Cake

2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup milk
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp lemon extract or lemon zest
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
6-8 lemons

Frosting

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups confectioner's sugar

Tools

Mixer (hand and stand both work)
Bowls (1 large, 1 medium, 1 that works with your mixer)
Piping bag
Measuring cups (Both dry and liquid)
Spatula
Spoon
Knife
Oven

Step 2: Gut the Lemons

Cut your lemon in half lengthwise. Then cut around the edges of the lemon, making sure to break the wall between the center line and the outside.

Using a spoon, dig out the inside of the lemon. Once you dig down deep enough, it should pop out easily.

Repeat on all lemons so you have at least 12 halves.

Step 3: Bake Cake

Mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in the large bowl.

Mix together the milk, eggs, vanilla extract, and lemon extract or zest in a medium bowl. Melt the butter.

Fold the liquids and butter into the dry ingredients.

Scoop the batter into the prepared lemon halves so that it reaches the top. Put the halves into a muffin pan to keep them safe while baking.

Bake for 25-35 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Step 4: Frosting

Beat your butter in the mixer until smooth. Slowly add the confectioner's sugar, then add the milk and vanilla, also slowly. Keep beating for about 5 minutes, scraping any confectioner's sugar stuck to the sides down.

Step 5: Decoration Station

Put the frosting in the bag and pipe it onto the lemon breads in a swirl pattern. I did this by piping circles on top of each other.

Add a decoration on top, such as sugar pearls.

Step 6: Eat!

Now you have super cute cupcakes! Yum!

I do not recommend eating the lemon on the outside. It does look cool and add a zesty flavor to the cake, but it also is lemon rind. The cake is edible, no worries on that! :)