Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes

These would be great cupcakes for Valentine's Day!  A vanilla cupcake is topped with strawberry-flavored frosting.  You flavor and color the frosting by using pulverized freeze-dried strawberries.  These can be bought at grocery stores (if you live Stateside, lol), or online.  I got mine at Nuts.com.  If you order from Nuts.com and live in the States, the shipping is super super fast.  For another way to make natural strawberry frosting, one can use freezer jam.

Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes

from Cooking Classy

1 cup + 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature*
1 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled slightly
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup whole milk, at room temperature*
1 recipe Strawberry Buttercream Frosting, recipe below
12 small fresh strawberries or strawberry slices, for decoration

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt for 30 seconds, set aside. In a separate large mixing bowl, using an electric hand mixer or stand mixer, set on medium-high speed, whip together eggs, sugar and vanilla until mixture is very pale, fluffy and thickened slightly, about 3 minutes. Mix in melted butter and vegetable oil. Working in three separate batches, beginning and ending with flour, add 1/3 of the flour mixture followed by 1/2 of the milk, blending until well combined after each addition.

2.  Pour batter into 12 paper lined muffin cups, filling each cup 2/3 full. Bake in preheated oven 15-20 minutes, until toothpick inserted into center of cupcake comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack, then frost with Strawberry Buttercream Frosting (recipe below) and top with a small whole fresh strawberry or fresh strawberry slices.

*To bring the eggs to room temp quickly, simply submerge in a bowl of warm water for 5 - 10 minutes. To bring milk to room temperature quickly, simply heat in microwave on high powder in a microwave safe dish for 15 - 20 seconds until no longer cold.

Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

from Cooking Classy

3/4 cup butter, at room temperature
1 cup (15g) freeze dried strawberries
2 1/2 Tbsp heavy cream or whole milk
2 cups (230g) powdered sugar

1.  In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, fitted with paddle attachment, whip butter on medium-high speed until very pale and fluffy 6 - 8 minutes, frequently scraping down sides and bottom of bowl. Meanwhile, pulverize freeze dried strawberries in a food processor** until finely ground (wait about 10 second before opening food processor allowing the powder in the air to settle a bit. There should be 3 1/2 Tbsp of the strawberry powder). Transfer strawberry powder to whipped butter and blend mixture until combined. Stir in heavy cream followed by powdered sugar and whip mixture 4 - 5 minute longer on medium-high speed, until very pale and fluffy, frequently scraping down sides and bottom of bowl.  Frost cupcakes.

**If you don't own a food processor, you can place the strawberries in a resealable bag, seal bag and crush to fine powder with a rolling pin.

                                                        *This post and photos are property of http://dishingwithdish.blogspot.com/ **