Homemade All Strawberry Cupcakes

TGIF!! Am I right!? I am so excited for this weekend! My hubby is turning 33 and I get to do something I have never done before...a couple's weekend getaway! As of tomorrow morning it will officially be Hub's Bday and to celebrate we are going back to the place we got married for the first time since we got hitched! I could just cry thinking about it. Best day of my life. Only the lucky get to marry their best friend.

And speaking of best friends...going with us are our best man and his amazing wife. They were there with us on our wedding day and are going back with us, too. It's going to be so wonderful. I just hope I don't start bawling every time I see something that reminds me of our big day. I'm pretty much an insanely emotional person, but I totally own how obnoxious and silly it is to cry at everything and usually end up laughing at myself.

Since birthdays=birthday cakes I knew I wanted to make something special for Hub since he's always so amazing to me. Seeing as Valentine's Day is right around the corner I decided to catch two fish with one net (not sure if that's clever but I'm keeping it) and make him a Valentine's Day type birthday cakeish. See Hub is not a fan of typical sheet cake or the normal icing used. We usually always do something other than cake for birthdays. For me it's always brownies and for Hub it's anything but cake. So when I suggested these Homemade All Strawberry Cupcakes he was sold!

What do I mean by all strawberry you ask? Well let's see...the cupcakes are made with real strawberries, there's strawberry jam secretly stuffed inside, they're topped with homemade strawberry icing AND there's real strawberries on top! Yep. That's right. Strawberries everywhere! Doesn't get much better for my hub. Plus I added in some french vanilla coffee creamer to make these super moist and delicious!

I'm a dork and cut the strawberries into little heart shapes. One: Because I love my husband very much and B: it makes these cute little cups that much cuter!

The sprinkles on these cupcakes are the icing on top of the...well icing :)

This one apparently didn't get much jam...buuut I'll eat it anyway :)

All packed up and ready to go with us tomorrow! See the candles? :)

Ingredients:
Cupcakes:
1 and 2/3 Cup + 1 Tbsp flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
5 Strawberries, cut up
1/2 Cup butter, melted
1 Cup sugar
3/4 Cup milk
1/4 Cup french vanilla creamer
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
 2-3 drops red food coloring
1/2 Cup strawberry jam

Icing:
2 Cups powdered sugar
1/4 Cup butter, softened
4 oz (half a brick) cream cheese, softened
1 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp strawberry jam or strawberry dessert topping (I ran out of jam and had to switch to the topping)
3-4 drops red food coloring

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line your cupcake pan with liners and set aside.

2. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl and set aside.

3. Take the chopped up strawberries and mash them with a fork until there are no more chunks left and it looks like strawberry soup. It took me all of three minutes in a shallow bowl to get the consistency I wanted. If you have a food processor, you can use that, but it doesn't seem worth the mess.

4. In a large bowl microwave the butter until melted, about 40 seconds. Stir in the sugar. Once combined and in the egg and stir until fully incorporated. Then add the milk, creamer, vanilla and food coloring. Stir until everything is mixed together.

5. Slowly add in the dry ingredients.

6. As soon as everything is blended together, fold in the the mashed strawberries.

7. Spoon the batter into liners until they are halfway filled. Add a small scoop of strawberry jam and cover with batter until the cups are about 3/4 way full. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. I cooked mine for 28 minutes and they came out perfect. Remove and set out to cool.

For icing:

Combine all ingredients in your mixer with the whisk attachment until it becomes creamy and there are no lumps. Add food coloring until the icing is the color you're looking for. Spoon into a piping bag or just plop right on top of the cupcake. Decorate and devour!

So are you a cake person? Or a brownies person? Or neither? Personal fav is brownies, although I've been known to consume multiple chocolate chip cookies in a single sitting. Got any fun plans for the weekend? Love to hear them!

Need a mixer? Grab one here!

How about a food processor? Here's a great one!

Thanks for stopping by!

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 Recipe adapted from here