Key Lime Cupcakes: Small Batch Mini Size

Key Lime Cupcakes recipe makes a small batch of mini sized 2-3 bite cupcakes. The topping is fluffy, light and airy with just the right amount of lime flavor.

Small Batch Mini Cupcakes

Everything is small these days. Small gatherings, mini cupcakes, small appetites (in our dreams, right). But, you get the point. You still want to celebrate special occasions, but we’re just doing them in a scaled down version.

Enter a recipe for cupcakes. Typically you’ll get 24 cupcakes. Converting that to mini’s means three for each cupcake, so you’ll end up with a whopping 72 mini cupcakes.

There is nothing small about that number when you’re talking about desserts. Now, truthfully a lot of people will eat 2 or 3 of these because they are pretty tiny – only 2-3 bites each. But, the world needed a recipe for a small batch of Key Lime Cupcakes. This one makes just 24, which is perfect for a gathering of 8-12 people.

But, if you have someone who is watching their sweets they will so appreciate you offering something in a micro version. We call them small bite sweets and you’ll find Easy Carrot Cake Cupcakes in the mini version here, plus three different desserts made in those cute little phillo shells.

My personal favorites are the pecan pie cheesecakes, but Sara loves the mini lemon tarts and most of the guys go for the chocolate chip mini cheesecakes.

Are they true Key Lime Cupcakes?

Well, that depends. They can be if you use key lime juice and zest. More often we have persian limes, and that’s the larger, deep green limes you find in most grocery stores.

For the real run down on the difference between the two check out this article from our friends at Southern Living.

Truth be told we use both types of limes interchangably and you should feel free to also.

Do you consider Florida to be part of the south? We do, and therefore key lime flavors and more citrus recipes are a part of southern cuisine. Read more about all that in Southern Food: Then & Now.

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Regardless of which type of lime you use you’ll want to use our favorite tool for juicing those limes. We don’t want you wearing your wrists out and getting seeds in your juice.

Is it frosting or whipped topping?

We specifically wanted our key lime cupcakes to be refreshing and not heavy, so we topped them with a sweetened whipped cream and it’s flavored with lime juice and zest too.

You’ll find it to be sweeter and have a little more body than just straight whipped cream, but way lighter than a true frosting.

If you want to pipe it on your cupcakes it works nicely for that. We used a plain Wilton 1-A tip, but to get a little fancier you could use a 1-M tip. Piping bags are always hand to have, but in pinch you can use a baggie.

Of course, you can use a sweeter, heavier frosting if you like. The cream cheese frosting for our orange cupcakes would be perfect. You would just substitute the orange extract with lime juice and the orange zest with lime zest.

TIP FOR FILLING THE CUPS WITH BATTER: When you have a thick batter like this one use a piping bag or a large zip-loc bag of any type with one corner cut off.

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