Strawberry Cupcakes

As you may know, we have a little strawberry patch in our yard that produces way too many strawberries for us to keep up with, so I harvest them, wash and hull them, and then freeze them to use throughout the year.


Since they were taking up so much space in the freezer, I decided it was finally time to do something with them. And who doesn't love a good cupcake?

I found this recipe for Sprinkle's strawberry cupcakes at Martha Stewart's website and decided to give it a go. This also makes these cupcakes perfect for Jennifer, the Domestic Goddess's event called Sugar High Fridays because this month's host, Palachinka, has decided to make the theme copy cat recipes! Check out the roundup on Friday, February 27th, or submit your own creation to this fun event.

Unfortunately, my copy cat attempt wasn't exactly a copy cat. It wasn't light and fluffy and was actually pretty dense, but tasty nonetheless. I think I probably didn't beat the butter enough? And don't even get me started on the frosting! It looked like someone threw up in my mixer, so I left my cupcakes naked. I'm still learning when it comes to this baking business. It's not easy! But I'm learning and improving and happily eating my mistakes along the way.

Here's the recipe. Hopefully you'll do better than I did.

Source: Martha Stewart and Sprinkles Cupcakes
Makes 1 dozen

Ingredients:
- 2/3 cup whole fresh or frozen strawberries, thawed
- 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 c milk (room temperature)
- 1/2 c (1 stick) unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 1 c sugar
- 1 egg (room temperature)
- 2 egg whites (room temperature)

Directions:
- Puree the strawberries. You should have about 1/3 c of puree (add more or less to get 1/3)
- Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together and set aside.
- Mix the milk, vanilla and strawberry puree together and set aside.
- Cream the butter on high until light and fluffy.
- Gradually add the sugar and continue to beat until combined.
- Turn your mixer speed to low and slowly mix the egg and egg whites in until just blended.
- Add half of the flour mixture until incorporated. Then add the milk mixture. Then add the last of the flour.
- Fill 12 lined cupcake tins and bake for 22-25 minutes at 350 degrees.

*If you want non-naked cupcakes, the recipe for frosting can be found here.