Hi PJ! This looks gorgeous but I don't think I could give up my buttercream! At the farmers market, we are not allowed to use meringues...health dept. rules. Ah, I remember PTA bake sales! No one got sick and no one was nervous about eating just about anything. What happened? Recently, they told me buttercream might not be ok to sell, that it depends on my recipe and the pH content. I can, for a "nominal fee," send my recipe to the health department and they will test it to see if it complies! I was bottling my homemade vanilla extract and can't do that either, it seems. I argued 'but alcohol will kill any bacteria' and 'what's the difference since I use my own extract in my cakes and sell those?' It is almost not worth doing anymore. ah, the good ole days! Want to comment on 2 things and ask a question. First, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the new colorful cupcake papers! I ordered 2 sets and they are beautiful. But what I like best is that they are so strong and the papers don't fold in on you while you are adding the batter! Now... if you put a white cupcake paper inside to preserve the brightness of the color, does it not slip out of the outside paper? I tried one recipe my first year of FM and it called for spraying the inside of the paper with oil before adding the batter. I watched people pick up their cupcakes and the papers were all sliding off right in front of me! I like your idea if the papers stay on...and they must...you wouldn't do it if you had bad results. One more thing: the lemon and orange oils. I bow to the genius of KAF! Last year I can't tell you how many bags of lemons I purchased at Costco. They were so expensive last summer, some of them were rotten when I got to the bottom of the bag, and it took me hours to zest and juice all of them for my fresh lemon cakes. Today is the first time I'm trying out substituting orange oil for zest in my date & nut spice loaves. I'm sure hoping they turn out well. If so, you have just saved me tons of time and money! Since the lemon cake has 3 layers with lemon... the cake, the syrup, and the glaze... I think I'll just put fresh lemon in the glaze only (where it shows and is obvious) and use the oil for the cake and the syrup. Hopefully, no one will ever know! Hi - Hope your lemon cake comes out scrumptious. It's true, the cupcake papers sometimes separate; I mostly use the double paper method with colored papers for display purposes, like for a birthday party, buffet, etc. With kids, I don't usually bother - the colors are still pretty, and with anything other than dark chocolate cake, they shine through just fine. PJH

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