Strawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream

Although I've made strawberry cupcakes before, this one was actually special request after someone had seen my Speckled Chocolate Easter Egg Cake. This is the first time I actually coached someone through baking and it was such a fun process. This is certainly something I wouldn't mind doing again.

Recipe for strawberry cupcakes and strawberry buttercream below:

We based this off a Martha Stewart Strawberry Cupcake Recipe.

Strawberry Cupcakes

Ingredients:

Makes 36 Cupcakes

• 3 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 226 unsalted butter (2 sticks) at room temperature
• 2 1/4 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 egg white
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 tbsp of vanilla extract
• 2 cups finely diced strawberries

Steps:

Have three bowls setup, one for dry ingredients, wet ingredients and a butter mixture:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line your cupcake pan with paper liners. 
2. Whisk together dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt in a bowl. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl for your butter mixture: Beat butter and sugar together until fluffy, adding one egg at a time beating between additions.
4. Next to the wet ingredients, mix together milk and vanilla. 
5. Alternate adding the dry ingredients and wet ingredients to butter mixture in three additions, ending with the dry. Beat well. 
6. Using a spatula, stir in the strawberries into your batter. 
7. Divide the batter into your cupcake pan. 
8. Bake for 17-20 minutes (less time required for mini cupcakes), or until cake taster comes out clean.

Strawberry Buttercream

I used the classic vanilla buttercream recipe, but added pureed strawberries which actually give a the buttercream a natural pink tint so you don't need to use food colouring!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2.5 cups icing sugar
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 1 tsp vanilla
• Strawberries: 1/4 cup pureed strawberries ** add this into the buttercream only spoonful at a time not all at once!

Steps:

Making the icing:

1. Beat butter until light and fluffy.
2. Add icing sugar and whipping cream in two parts, alternating between the two.
3. Beat in vanilla. The result should be icing with stiff peaks.
4. Add the strawberry puree (just fresh strawberries in a food processor or blender) one spoon at a time, mixing into the buttercream with a spatula. You don't want to add too much at once or else the buttercream will be too runny and won't hold its form when you pipe it.

Frosting the cupcake:

1. Put a 1M Wilton Tip into an icing bag, then fill the icing bag with your strawberry buttercream. 
2. There are two versions of icing these cupcakes that I like: star swirl or little rosettes.

Just putting some of the cupcakes in a container to bring to my condo security guys downstairs! They're always more than happy to eat my baked goods:

Garnish your cupcakes:

If you have any extra strawberries slice them and place them on the cupcakes like a little lemon on a martini glass. You can even cut them heart shaped.