Strawberry Cupcakes

(I'm playing catch-up here with the blogging).

For Easter, Jonathan and I decided to host a brunch for our church community group. So, besides a frittata and ham and champagne cocktails (of course) there needed to be cupcakes!

For this special occasion I decided upon the strawberry cupcakes. Strawberries were on sale at A&P ($2 for a whole container) and my friend Tim said he would prefer fruited cupcakes to celebrate the occasion (and his completion of his qualifying exam--go Tim).

Now the strawberry cupcakes ask you to chop up 20 strawberries or so and add them to the batter to create little pockets of real fruit within the cupcake. It also calls for cake flour--a new ingredient. So off to the store with us. For those who decide to search for cake flour (it produces a lighter, fluffier crumb in the batter than all-purpose flour does) let me inform you: It does not come in bags. Jon and I searched up and down the flour section finding all-purpose, bleach, whole wheat, bread...but no cake flour. Just as we decided to give up, suggesting that our, albeit close yet paltry, A&P did not have such a delicacy, a woman passing by pointed to a row of boxes up top (next to the cornstarch) simply saying "It comes in a box". So...oh. We graciously thanked her, grabbed it, flaunting our noviceness and checked out.

Back to the cupcake: The batter is a light vanilla-esque batter with the strawberries added in, very light, very sweet and thus produced, as the cake flour said it would, a light fluffy cupcake.

To top these yummies, Martha suggests the Strawberry Meringue Buttercream. I have no idea what her thing for meringue is but, here we go. So, more separating egg whites, more whipping for what feels like ever and then, to get that strawberry-ness you puree several berries and add the liquid to the fluffy meringue. Sounds easy enough. As we added it, our meringue proceeded to deflate. And despite whipping that sucker for 20minutes straight, we just could not recover the fluffiness. It was like think, pink, tasty soup. (The picture shows a towering swirl that would make soft-serve ice cream jealous). Feeling defeated, I slathered the goop on the cupcakes and added a slice of strawberry to pretty it up.

In all honesty, they still tasted really good! And they were a hit at Easter. The icing, although not towering, was still very tasty and a great compliment to the light fluffy cake and tidbits of strawberry underneath.

Last Bite: As long as picture perfect presentation isn't a concern, these make for some tasty light cupcakes that any strawberry fan will be delighted over.

P.S. The picture isn't of mine but it gives a good idea of what they looked like. They were all eaten on Easter before I got a picture. I guess that proves how tasty they were.