Blue Moon Ice Cream Cupcakes

If you read my post from yesterday you may have been wondering, “what in the world is blue moon ice cream?” It’s not ice cream made with the beer (though that could be tasty). Blue Moon is an ice cream flavor that is extremely popular in the upper midwest. The fun, and slightly maddening, thing about Blue Moon ice cream is that no one agrees on what it tastes like. Wikipedia lists the following guesses: “fruit, Fruit Loops, orange, pineapple, lemon, cherry, raspberry, cantaloupe, honeydew, peach, licorice, pistachio, coconut, almond, burnt almond, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cardamom, buttercream, custard, chocolate, vanilla, marshmallow, bubble gum, Blue Curaçao, Crème de cacao, Amaretto, cake frosting, cotton candy, cola, and various combinations of these flavors.”

Intriguing, right? I think it tastes like fruit loops, with undertones of orange or citrus. Side note: that may have been the silliest sentence I’ve ever written. If you live in the upper midwest, consider yourself lucky and go try Blue Moon if you haven’t! If you live elsewhere, keep your eye out for this unique flavor.

Blue Moon Ice Cream Cupcakes
Recipe source: wineandglue.com
Print Recipe

1 box white cake mix (plus required eggs + oil)
1-1/2 Tablespoons almond extract
1/2 Tablespoon orange liquor
A batch of buttercream icing (or you can use vanilla store-bought icing)

1. Preheat oven to 350F and line muffin tins with paper cups.
2. Make cake batter according to box directions — adding in the almond extract and orange liquor.
3. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full and bake according to box directions. Allow to cool completely on wire racks.
4. Frost with homemade buttercream or store bought icing. Garnish with Fruit Loops.



3 thoughts on “Blue Moon Ice Cream Cupcakes”

  • I make a lot of homemade ice cream, including Blue Moon flavor. I was thinking about trying to do a dyed, Blue Moon-flavored layer cake for a St. Patrick’s party, but am having trouble finding any recipes for something like that (they all use Blue Moon beer). The recipe you posted comes the closest. In the end, I probably don’t need anyone else’s recipe, as my Blue Moon ice cream recipe is dead-on, and it wouldn’t really be that difficult to convert it to cake with the key ingredients. I guess I’m just curious to see if anyone else has thought of this or tried it.

    I do enjoy the cult of Blue Moon, and the ongoing controversy about its origins and actual flavor profile. In my opinion, it tastes exactly like the leftover milk from a bowl of Fruit Loops or Fruity Pebbles cereal. I can’t be any more specific than that. There’s a definite fruitiness, but I’ve never been able to identify any specific fruits in there.

    I notice that the recipe you posted used completely different ingredients to arrive at the Blue Moon flavor, and I thought you might be interested in knowing how it’s done at the source, as that classic ice cream flavor. Blue Moon is basically a plain Vanilla ice cream with 4 key additions: Lemon Extract, Raspberry Extract, Instant Vanilla Pudding Mix, and Blue Food Coloring. It’s that unusual combination of Raspberry, Citrus and Vanilla that makes it difficult to pin down. It’s not exactly Blue Raspberry-flavor, nor is it plain Raspberry or even Citrus, but rather a general fruitiness that always stumps people. The creaminess of the dairy products makes the flavor very smooth, and probably helps to elicit that cereal association. I hope that it will translate well to cake. I want a subtle, indistinct flavor for a novelty cake that people won’t be able to pin down, and Blue Moon came right to mind. If you ever revisit your recipe, you might consider trying it with the alternate ingredients. Thanks

    • Wow, thanks for the info, Steve! The citrus + raspberry + vanilla pudding mix flavor combo certainly seems like it could produce the Blue Moon flavor! Happy baking :)

  • I’m so happy I found this. Blue moon is my favorite! Funny I was just making a batch of cookies for Christmas and the ingredients were white cake mix, almond extract and orange extract and other things. But when I tried them I was over the moon (lol) excited bc I thought they tasted just like blue moon ice cream!

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