Orange Marmalade-filled Lemon Cupcakes

I love pastries with delectable surprise fillings. And when used for cupcakes, they're even better! I made my lemon cupcakes again, but this time, with orange marmalade inside. Delicious. Mmm... so good. It's also a great way to save a batch of man-overboard over-baked cupcakes, by adding a moist center.

As you can tell in the photo above, you can't see the filling since the frosting covers it up, so it definitely gives a nice surprise when you bite into it (see photo below). And the taste and texture -- if you love citrus flavors -- marmalade adds a refreshing orange zesty zing, a slightly heavier sweetness, and makes the cupcake super, super moist. Yummness!

How to fill your Cupcake with Goodness:

It's actually very easy to fill your cupcakes after they've been baked. (I don't know about baking filling into cupcakes yet, but I will get there soon... I saw this awesome cream cheese filled chocolate cupcake recipe.) If you're doing it for mini cupcakes, you just have to have the patience to sit through all of them, oh and be a little more gentle with the whole process since they're smaller and more delicate.

All you do is take a knife, hold it at a 30º-45º angle, and insert into the top of your cupcake about a 1/4" from the edge. You can start at the edge/corner of the cupcake if you like too. Slowly, and gently slice around the top in a circle, in short sawing motions (so the cake doesn't crumble apart).

Once you've completed your circle, pull out the center, and put it aside. It will naturally want to sit on its base, in a cone shape.

Take a small spoon, and fill the center hole with some marmalade. You don't want to fill the hole all the way to the top, but maybe about 4/5 full. Reason being is that when you put the cake center back on, the marmalade is slippery, so you want the cake to fit into the hole just a little bit to prevent too much movement.

Then, take your cone-shaped center, and place it base-side down, on top of the hole, and gently press down to make sure it stays firmly in the hole, so when you start frosting, the cap won't shift around.

And that's it! Now just do it another 50 more times for those mini cupcakes... :) Remember to be gentle when frosting as well.

Tastes good with buttercream or chocolate frosting in mini cupcake form!