Strawberry Cupcakes

The past Valentine's Day, while I was slaving over that delicious cake on a previous post, new friend Amanda was making these so damn good cupcakes. I guarantee she couldn't have been slaving b/c they were sooooo easy to make!!!

The recipe she sent me made 12 cupcakes, so I made some alterations and made 36 instead! I was making them for my co-workers and I didn't think it would be very nice of me to make 25 people fight over 9 cupcakes. I say 9 b/c one for me, one for mom and one for dad. :) Can't forget them!

So I would have just tripled the recipe, but in all honestly, it wouldn't have done well. Sometimes, you just kinda have to experiment with that texture would be good. So this is the recipe as I got it from Amanda (the little asterisks are her notes):

Strawberry Cupcakes (makes 12 cupcakes)

1/2 cup sugar *i used organic cane sugar, its better and not bleached. bleach is gross and has no place in the things you eat*
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1 large egg *cage free/free range always taste better*
6 ounces Vanilla Lowfat Yogurt *i'm sure you can use soy yogurt, you know, if you're into that*
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour *unbleached, for reals.*
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. kosher salt *really any salt works, i used sea salt with minerals*
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup fresh strawberries, diced *fresh and organic - no pesticides/waxes/hormones - they're also not Frankenstein size or deformed*

Frosting:
2 Tbsp. butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
2 fresh strawberries, about 2 Tbsp. mashed

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin with paper liners. With an electric hand mixer, beat the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the egg, Dannon® All Natural Vanilla Lowfat Yogurt and vanilla, blending until smooth.

2. Measure the dry ingredients into the bowl and blend, then fold in the strawberries.

3. Divide the mixture equally between the 12 paper-lined cupcake cups. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean. *When they're out of the oven, take them out of the muffin pan asap, or else the heat of the cupcakes creates steam which gets trapped in the pan and makes the bottoms soggy. No one likes soggy bottoms.*

Frosting:
4. Beat together butter, powdered sugar, and mashed strawberry in medium-size bowl until creamy and smooth. Chill frosting for 15 minutes or until thick. Frost cupcakes with a spatula. Keep cupcakes in the refrigerator loosely covered.


Now my version which made 36 cupcakes, plus 4 minis. :)

1 1/2 cups of sugar
1 1/2 stick of butter (the other half I used in the frosting)
3 eggs
12 oz vanilla yogurt
1 tbsp vanilla extract
4 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda***
1 1/4 tsp of cornstarch***
2 1/2 tsp cream of tartar***
1/2 tsp salt
1 pint of strawberries, diced

Frosting:
1/2 stick softened butter
6 fresh strawberries
1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar

These are made the same way as stated above. Blend the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time to the mixture, add vanilla yogurt and vanilla extract until all well blended. Add the rest of the dry ingredients until just blended. Fold in the diced strawberry.
I checked them at 20 minutes. I had to pull some out of the pan b/c they were done while the other half weren't. Probably shouldn't have put all the muffin pans in at once...

For the frosting, I tossed the strawberries in the food processor first, then added the butter and added half a cup of powdered sugar at a time, pulsing a little each time to blend until I had the consistency I wanted. I didn't want the frosting too sweet, I wanted everyone to be able to taste straight up strawberry. It ended up being a nice liquidy consistency, which dripped in the paper cups and on the sides. Exactly what I was going for.

They were so moist and thick. The frosting was not too sweet, which is exactly what I was going for.
***So when you run out of baking powder (or just accidentally sprinkle baking soda before you realize your mistake, like me), you need to use about a fourth of the amount of baking soda than baking powder, then an equal amount of cornstarch and double the amount of cream of tartar.