Skip to main content

Anticipating Summer - Fresh Strawberry Cupcakes


Nothing screams summer in Britain like strawberries. I know it's not yet summer, but with the lovely warm sunny spell we recently had, it was easy to imagine it had arrived early. And so I simply couldn't resist these gorgeous berries from my local supermarket. I do try and buy fruit and veg in season, and local if I can. Marked 'early season', they were at least British, and not too far from Cardiff (as the crow flies), being grown in Somerset.  I must admit though, they had me at 'hellooo ... I'm a beautiful, luscious, red strawberry and I taste divine'. No more, no less.


Now I know that some would say it's a crime to eat these any other way than au naturel. But I have always wanted to make fresh strawberry cupcakes. While I've tried some perfectly adequate supermarket ones recently, I thought home made would be miles better. With that firmly in mind, they found their way into my trolley.


I adapted Mary Berry's cupcake recipe from 100 Cakes and Bakes (which I last used for the Weekly Bake Off) here, using 3 tbpsns of fresh strawberry purĂ©e instead of the milk. I also guesstimated my own buttercream as I found Mary Berry's recipe stingy for the number of cupcakes. I also wanted to use more of the purĂ©ed fruit to flavour and colour the buttercream.

Ingredients (makes 10 cupcakes)

100g softened unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
150g self-raising flour
3 tbspn milk
2 large eggs
1/2 tspn vanilla extract
3 tbspn strawberry purée

Buttercream Frosting

150g softened unsalted butter
300g sifted icing sugar (but use more or less to get the consistency you like)
200 - 300ml of fresh strawberry purée

Preheat the oven to 160 fan / 180 conventional / gas 4. Line your muffin pan with cupcake liners.

To make the strawberry purée, blitz the strawberries in a food blender with a little icing sugar (to taste really - I used about a tablespoon). Then pass through a sieve to remove the seeds. Set aside. I used two, 250g punnets of strawberries and reserved five of the smaller ones for topping the cupcakes.

For the cupcakes, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs and vanilla, mixing gently until smooth. Add in the flour, and mix again. Finally add in 3 tbspns of the strawberry purĂ©e, and mix gently until incorporated, being careful not to overbeat the mix.

Scoop into the prepared cups, dividing equally between them. I use an old-fashioned ice-cream scoop (2 1/2 inch diameter) for mine and found this amount of mix gives 10 cupcakes.

Bake in the centre of the oven for approximately 20 minutes, until risen and and a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven and after leaving to cool for approx 5 - 10 minutes, turn out on to a wire rack to cool completely.


To make the buttercream frosting, I first reduced the 200 - 300ml of strawberry purĂ©e by simmering over a low heat in a small pan. This left me with about half the original volume - around 100 - 150ml. Leave this to cool completely, so that it does not melt the butter.

I normally use my stand mixer to make frosting, so this is what I do. Cream the butter slightly to break it up, then add in little by little the icing sugar. Once you think it's nearly ready, add in the strawberry purĂ©e and mix well [it may look a little curdled at first, but carry on mixing and it will come back together, trust me]. Then, add in a little more icing sugar until you get the consistency you want. Leave to beat for a few minutes to ensure that it's really smooth and creamy, and that the strawberry purĂ©e is mixed throughout the frosting. Decorate how you want.



I used my Wilton 1M tip to pipe rose swirls (you start at the centre and move to the outside edge of the cupcake), and then used some strawberry slices to decorate some of them.


The cupcakes were a little denser than normal, but still really moist. The lovely fresh strawberry aroma and flavour came through in spades. I was really pleased with them, and they were definitely better than shop bought.


The irony, of course, as I sit and type this, is that the weather in Cardiff has now taken a turn for the worst. Summer seems so very far away again. But at least not in my cake tin ...

Susie

Comments

  1. Gorgeous! Gorgeous! And delicious :) Love it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love your rose piping - very pretty. I love strawberries - fresh or in cake form! Let's hope these bring the sunny weather back :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! It would be nice to have some more sun, wouldn't it? :)

      Delete
  3. I think you've just solved my strawberry cupcake problem.... strawberry puree! Now why didn't I think of that! Even if I cut up my strawberries fairly small they seem to leave my cupcakes soggy and badly baked.

    I love the pink icing too, so pretty and summery. Roll on Wimbledon!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks - yes I think the purée works well. They would be perfect for a treat during Wimbledon if you get fed up of strawberries and cream. What am I saying? ;)

      Delete
  4. I love the idea of a bit of summer in your cake tin! Definitely these are reminiscent of Wimbledon!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Sarah, well, if it's raining outside, at least we can enjoy something reminiscent of summer! :)

      Delete
  5. Lovely looking cupcakes...I love fruit in or on cakes!! Great piping too! :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Laura! Must admit, I'm a bit sheltered when it comes to fruit in baking - some bad memories of my mum's cooking from when I was little come back to haunt me, so I find some off putting - but there are some that I love, and strawberries are one of them. I'm gradually experimenting and developing my tastes though! :)

      Delete

Post a Comment

Your comments are very much appreciated.

Popular posts from this blog

Dark Indulgent Chocolate and Walnut Brownies for the Weekly Bake Off

It's been a great couple of weeks in the Bake Off , as Amy has chosen some fantastic chocolate recipes from Mary Berry's 100 Cakes and Bakes . Although I made last week's American Chocolate Ripple Cheesecake, I didn't enter it. Not because it was a disaster (it was incredibly delicious though very rich - Josh has been able to eek it out all week as he only needs a little piece to get his daily chocolate fix!), but I simply ran out of time. So this week, I decided to get my skates on and make the bake early. Particularly as it's brownies. Yes. Brownies. Those dark, fudgey, chocolatey little bites of heaven. But for me, this week was an experiment. You see, I already have a fantastic brownie recipe . It's been made countless times and been played around with to give an endless variety of treats. (Have I ever mentioned Maya Gold in brownies? Yes? Well I'll have to post about them someday soon because they are amazing - like some sort of out of body exp

Not Viennese, but Swiss Cakes for the Weekly Bake Off

One of my strongest childhood memories is the ritual of our family's Sunday Tea, which always took a certain form. My nan would put the kettle on at just before 4pm, and a pot of steaming hot tea would soon be brewed. There were sandwiches, and always, always some form of cake. Quite often, if nan and mum had had a busy weekend, it would be provided by Mr Kipling. My brother and I looked forward to this with some enthusiasm, as there were quite often French Fancies and Vienniese Whirls, which were our hands-down favourites. We could leave the Battenburg Slices, and the jam tarts were often a bit too dry  for us (definitely not as good as homemade). But the soft sweet inside of an iced French Fancy (my favourite being the lemon yellow ones), and the moistness of the Viennese Whirls were something to savour. Of course, you can still buy these. But they just don't seem to taste the same somehow. So when Amy announced this week's Bake Off challenge as the Apricot Swiss

Limoncello Cake

I really love this cake. I mean really love it. So much so, it's my new best friend. It's like sunshine on a plate. The citrussy aroma tempts you while the sultry lemony pucker hits you full in the mouth. And who can resist anything with 'Limoncello' in the title? The mere mention of the word transports you to to the Sicilian sun. It's one more reason I have to thank Random Recipes for getting me to delve into my cookbooks. This month's challenge had a bit of a twist. Dom, of Belleau Kitchen (who runs the challenge) created a Randometer thingummy-bob to test us. You had to enter how many cookbooks you owned, and then it would generate a random number. You counted along your shelf to that book, and then entered the number of pages, to generate another number and so find your Random Recipe. The gods must have been looking favourably on me this month, as I ended up with this gorgeous lemon cake, from Peggy Porschen's 'Boutique Baking