Simple Sweet Strawberry Cupcakes! Happy Birthday Nevaeh!

      It's a beautiful sunny Monday morning and I'm up with coffee in tow baking cupcakes for my little cousin Nevaeh! She's turning 3 and theme for today "Princess and the Frog Party" with a little bit of Dora and Tinkerbell thrown in there! So I've decided to make little mini bites of simple strawberry cake with a strawberry filling and sweet vanilla, strawberry buttercream frosting piped on top. These actually will be intended more for the adults seeing that Nevaeh already has a cake adorned with "Princess and the Frog" trinkets and cupcakes to match via Publix bakery! Of course she will get to enjoy a strawberry mini bite as well, it's her birthday after all! So enough jibber jabber and on to the food!

        I start with my handy base recipe for cupcakes, which can be found on my previous post titled "Month of Dave", and just add a strawberry like jam that I concocted from frozen strawberries. I add them to a sauce pan on med heat with a cup of sugar , a tsp of vanilla extract, 1/4 tsp of lemon zest, and a bit of lemon juice. The citric acid from the  lemon will help draw out the natural juices of the berries. After it all comes to a boil, I lower the heat and let it reduce and thicken, mashing up some of the bigger chunks. After it reaches the desired consistency, I divided half of my strawberry mixture and add one half  to the 1/2 of milk added at the end of making my batter. This will help cool the berries down and make it easier to work into the batter, distributing that yummy strawberry taste throughout! Once my batter is complete, I'm ready to spoon into my mini muffin tin with mini cupcake liners! "In the oven you go" I say and carry on to my butter cream! 

     Now for my sweet vanilla and strawberry buttercream, I have already taken out 1/2 c of butter to let soften. I'm using a basic buttercream recipe and splitting it in half since I won't need much. The 1/2 c of butter goes into the mixture on low speed, along with 1 1/4 c of powdered sugar, 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract, and 1 Tbs of heavy cream. I increase the speed for 1 minute after adding the cream until it's a smooth creamy consistency. Over mixing will cause your buttercream to curdle and break up and at that point its kind of hard to save it, trust me I've done the leg work, so try to make sure your butter is soft and room temp, and keep a watchful eye on your mix. Once my buttercream is complete, I fold in the remaining cooled strawberries, trying not to over work the buttercream but making sure its fully incorporated. 

   My cupcakes are complete!I was able to get two pans full of mini cupcakes out of the batter, the more the merrier I say! I place them all on my cake stand to cool, core out some and add what strawberry mix I have left over. The rest I leave plain and then begin to pipe on some delicious sweet vanilla and strawberry buttercream. MMMMMM, yep these will be perfect little bite-size treats, I smile to myself and pack them up before managing to gobble up one or two. On to the party!