Strawberry Cupcakes

There are so many things I love about summertime.  All the green, the heat, swimming pools, fishing, baseball games, and bountiful, fresh produce!  I love getting fruits and vegetables from farmers' markets, and this year I'm even trying my hand at growing some of my own.  I have tomatoes forming and a bell pepper plant and plans for a zucchini plant (I'd better get on that....).  One thing I haven't been brave enough to try growing myself, but undoubtedly will before too many summers pass by, is strawberries.  

Strawberries are my husband's absolute favorite, and they are so perfectly summery.  Ripe, red, and sweet, they taste like a little bit of sunshine.  It amazes me, though, how difficult is to find a good strawberry cake recipe.  The go-to just seems to be that terrifyingly pink artificial cake mix.  But I have a solution for you today!  Strawberry cupcakes from scratch! And the literal icing on the cake: a strawberry cream cheese frosting! These things are seriously so easy, both to make and to eat. 

I was inspired by this recipe at Layers of Happiness, which, although delicious, was not quite strawberry-y enough for me.  I made a few adjustments, my own frosting, and present it here for your digital and culinary enjoyment!

The biggest change I made was changing fresh strawberry puree to strawberry preserves. I recommend using the most natural preserves you can find. I'm a big fan of the Welch's All Natural, but there are other brands and styles. Generally, look for something with as few ingredients as possible and the first two being strawberries and sugar.  

After assembling the ingredients, divide them into little teams.  Team One is flour, salt, and baking powder.  These get whisked up in a bowl and set aside. Nothing fancy. See? Not even an exciting picture.  Just white fluffy, white powder, and white grainy.  

Team A, then, gets mixed up into a separate bowl. This is the strawberry goo (preserves, spread, jam, etc.), half and half, and vanilla.  This also is not very fancy, but make sure you give it a good stir with the whisk so that it's smooth and more of "creamy strawberry" and less of "red blob in white pool."  

The next step (or if you're in a rush, get it started before creating Team One and Team A, and let it work while you make teams)  is to cream the butter and sugar.  Let the mixer work on this for a couple minutes until it's beautiful and fluffy.  Because it's only one stick of butter and half a cup of sugar, I find that the paddle on the mixer spreads it pretty thin along the sides of the bowl and scraping it down once or twice helps achieve the appropriate texture.  

When you've got fluffy sugar butter (that sounds like a silly pet name, doesn't it?  "How was work today, Snookums?" "Just fine, my Fluffy Sugar Butter! How was your day??"), scrape it down and add in the eggs.  Because I know you are both intelligent and observant, you might say, "Eggs? Holly, there is only one yolk pictured here!" And to that I say, "I know.  I took the picture before the second egg was added.  Cool your jets." 

Continue mixing, and when it's all smooth, pour in half of Team One (flour, et al.) and mix again until it's incorporated.   Then pause your mixer and pour in all of Team A (creamy strawberry), and continue mixing. 

After the strawberry mixture is all incorporated, slowly add in the rest of Team One (that's flour, aren't you paying attention?) and mix it just until it's all combined.  Somewhere in this process, make sure you scrape down the bowl and give it a quick stir with the spatula.  Other bowls might not have this problem, but I've noticed in my KitchenAid bowls, there is a groove in the bottom of the bowl for the attachment to go around, and sometimes a little bit of batter gets left unmixed below that. Since KitchenAid mixers are pretty awesome and popular, I just want you to watch out for that.  This batter (like most) work best when it's consistent throughout. 

Pour into prepared muffin tins/liners and bake at 350 for 25 minutes.  I found that this made almost exactly 12 standard sized cupcakes.  I had just a little batter left over, and I poured it into a mini-muffin tin.  The minis turned out so well that I just had to tell you about it.  These would be excellent as tiny treats for a party.  They didn't require a liner and made perfect bite-size delights of wonderment after baking at about 12 minutes. See? So cute!  Also, the minis are deceptively easy to eat.  I barely got a picture of this one before I gobbled it up. 

Like always, make sure the cupcakes are cool before you frost them.  I didn't take pictures of making the frosting because you know how to do this.  Mix up the cream cheese and butter until they're smooth, add in the strawberry, and slowly add in powdered sugar.  Depending on how sweet your strawberry goo is, you may want to add more powdered sugar than what I specified below.  I also added in some meringue powder just to help stiffen it.  If you don't have meringue powder, don't fret. 

Because it was nearly 100 degrees outside and the oven had been on, I found that I had to let my frosting chill in the fridge before frosting my cupcakes. You'll know this is the case if your frosting looks more like melting soft-serve ice cream.  It's delicious, but difficult to work with. I also want to mention that I made two batches of cupcakes and only one batch of frosting and the frosting was just about right for two batches (or 24 cupcakes).  Leftover frosting won't last long, though, not because it'll spoil, but because it will be devoured.  Honestly, I could eat this frosting just on a spoon. It's also good on strawberries, and although I didn't try it, I bet it would be phenomenal on a toasted bagel.  Or just make more cupcakes and put it on those! 

One more note:  I'm not a big fan of red food coloring, but if you just really want your cupcakes and/or icing to be a bit pinker, a few drops should do the trick.  If you're going for a strong red, be careful not to overdo it, because red dye often has a propensity to become bitter.  If you're coloring the frosting, try getting gel coloring specifically made for dying frosting. I prefer Wilton; it comes in little tubs and a little bit goes a loooong way. 

Whatever you do, definitely make these cupcakes. They're so good. They're so easy.  And you probably have all of the ingredients on hand. Share them with your family and/or friends. They will love you for it.  

Strawberry Cupcakes

2/3 cup strawberry preserves
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup half and half
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside. In another bowl, whisk together strawberry preserves, half and half, and vanilla.  Set aside. In the bowl of your stand mixer, cream together sugar and butter until fluffy.  Add eggs and mix until smooth. Add half of the flour mixture and mix until combined.  Add all of the strawberry mixture and continue mixing until smooth.  Slowly mix in the rest of the flour mixture until incorporated.  Scoop into twelve prepared cupcake liners and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.  If baking mini-sized cupcakes, bake for 12 minutes.  Allow to cool completely before frosting. 

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

1 8 oz block of cream cheese

1/2 cup butter

3/8 cup strawberry preserves

3 to 4 cups powdered sugar

2 Tablespoons meringue powder (optional)

Mix cream cheese and butter in the bowl of your stand mixer with a whisk attachment.   When fluffy, add strawberry preserves.  Slowly add powdered sugar and meringue powder.  If icing is too soft, chill in refrigerator until consistency is appropriate.