Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

After months and months of not baking, I have finally returned to the kitchen!  It has been a little over a year since I baked my last cupcakes, and I’m not going to lie, I was pretty nervous to jump back into it.  This past weekend was Memorial Day and I had just returned from what seemed like a straight month of traveling.  Unfortunately, I returned to grey skies and thunderstorms.  With the weather being so horrendous this weekend it allowed me to reunite with my beloved mixer!

I went back and forth in my head for a long while on what type of cupcake I would make.  Should I go basic, whip up an old favorite, or try something completely new??  I decided to go with something brand new – Strawberry-Lemonade.  It is the end of May and there has only been one or two warm/sunny days in Chicago, so I was craving summer!  One thing that always reminds me of summertime is lemonade, and more specifically a lemonade stand.  For several years I ran a solid beverage business at my grandmother’s house.  As you can see below I became a local celebrity one year when they put my picture in the Cincinnati Enquirer (killer bangs, I know).  I thought a straight lemon cupcake might be too boring so that is where the strawberry comes in.    

I didn’t have an exact recipe to follow, but I will walk you through what I ended up doing.  The cake is lemon.  To start I used my standard yellow cake recipe (it is not actually mine, but the one I use most from my cookbooks). 

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups cake flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3 large eggs - (I used 5 egg whites)

2 cups sugar

1 cup canola oil

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 cup milk

1 pkg dry lemon pudding mix

1 lemon

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  In a separate bowl (mixer bowl), beat eggs and sugar roughly 2 minutes on medium.  Then blend in oil and vanilla.  Start adding in the flour mixture alternating with the milk until batter is smooth.

Now to make it lemon I tried a couple things.  First I added about 2/3 package of lemon pudding mix.  Then I put in some lemon zest.  I don’t know the exact amount, but a decent portion of the lemon.  I made half of the cupcakes with these additions.  Then just in case the above would not be enough I squeezed the juice of half a lemon into the remaining batter.  I think the cakes with the additional lemon juice were much better so for a full batch I would recommend squeezing the juice of a whole lemon.

Spoon the mixture into baking cups and bake at 350 for 18 minutes(large), 14 minutes(mini)

The icing was a strawberry buttercream.  As a forewarning I have always struggled a bit with icing.  Again, I went with a standard buttercream then added strawberries.

2 sticks of butter (room temp)

Roughly 2/3 of a bag of powdered sugar

And small doses of heavy whipping cream

Container of frozen strawberries

First, beat the butter until fluffy.  It is SO SO SO important the butter is room temp.  I have tried to take shortcuts before and heat up the butter or use it when it was still chilled – not okay.  It just does not work nearly as well.  Also, I almost always use unsalted butter.  Then start mixing in the powdered sugar and heavy cream.  I usually just use a little of each at a time until I get the right consistency.  Everything was looking good until I added the strawberries.  After they thawed I chopped them into tiny pieces.  Threw a couple spoonfuls into the icing and started mixing.  I then added a little bit of the strawberry juice.  I could never get the right consistency.  I put the icing in the refrigerator for a bit then let it sit out.  Just couldn’t get it right. 

Full Size

I went back and forth at the store on if I should use fresh or frozen berries.  I settled on frozen because I thought if necessary I could use the juice for extra flavor.  Maybe not the best choice.  The taste of the icing was great, but the consistency just wasn’t right.  That’s where the “don’t judge a book by its cover comes in” – great taste, poor appearance.  I think it had something to do with the frozen berries.  I also bought strawberry jam to add to the mix but didn’t end up using any of it.  Still interested in how that would turn out. 

Mini

So if you are looking to bake something refreshing, the above is perfect.  Next time I will try something different for the icing to obtain a better look.  I will not be rating my cupcakes on the standard scale I use for the professionals because I don’t think I could handle my own critiques.

Enjoy!

J