Friday, February 7, 2014

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!

**I linked up to made from pinterest, weekend potluck, tickled pink x2, foodie friday, freedom fridays, im lovin it, thursday s.t.y.l.e., kitchen fun with my 3 sons, friday flash blog, bloom designs, pin it thursday, all things thursday, full plate thursday, create it thursday, whats cooking wednesday, fluster buster, wordless wednesday, atozebra, tutorial tuesday, titus 2 tuesday, the scoop, nifty thrifty tuesday, homecoming, make it pretty monday, metamorphosis monday, give me the goods, sunday showcase party, much ado about monday, frugal crafty home, marvelous mess, craftomaniac, amaze me mondays

 Recipe adapted from here

27 comments:

  1. Hi Elie! Thank you so much for sharing these pretty cupcakes at Best of the Weekend - pinned to our party board. Happy b-day to your hubby and hope you two are having a wonderful and amazing weekend!

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  2. Thanks for sharing at the Happiness Is Homemade Link Party! Pinning to the party board and can't wait to see what happiness posts you share next week! Have a terrific week!
    Cathy
    APeekIntoMyParadise.com

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  3. These look so yummy! I love the strawberry heart on top. Well done!

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  4. "Nicely presented information in this post, I prefer to read this kind of stuff."
    by ORGANIZER

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  5. Those look amazing, can't wait to make them!

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  6. Over from what'd you do this weekend link up. Mm, looks scrum my. Lovely story. Have a great weekend.

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  7. hi love strawberries will definitely being pinning this recipe thanks for sharing visiting from recipe monday have a great day

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  8. Those cupcakes look delicious! Enjoy the celebrations.

    Best wishes,
    Natasha in Oz
    www.natashainoz.com

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  9. These look wonderful......and so tasty looking also. :)
    gentlejoyhomemaker.blogspot.com

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  10. Your cupcakes look lovely and delicious. I can almost taste the strawberry now. Thanks for linking up and sharing with us tonight at Turn It Up Tuesday.
    Angel

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  11. Looks so good I wish I could reach right in and eat one! Stopping by as co-host of Homemade link Party.

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  12. I love these cupcakes! They are just so pretty and the strawberry hearts are the best!!! I hope you have a wonderful trip full of happy memories :)

    Just stopping by from Best of the Weekend.

    Toodles,
    Tammy<3

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  13. I just love strawberries and these cupcakes look fabulous. I can just taste it now!

    Thanks so much for sharing on Turn It Up Tuesday! We love having you! :)

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  14. And by the way, I hope you had a great time this weekend - it's so beautiful to be married to your best friend and to celebrate such a great occasion with your friends. Wishing you the best!

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  15. I love strawberries I will have to make these. Thanks for linking up at Tell Me About It Tuesday. We hope you hop over and share with us again next week.

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  16. My little boy loves strawberries so I'm definitely trying this recipe. Thank you for sharing!

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  17. Thanks so much for sharing the recipe, it looks amazing!

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  18. I'm coming over from Wonderful Wednesdays. I pinned your recipe!

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  19. I swear you are so sweet and your not a dork. I bet your hubby really like them. Thank you for sharing it on our Four Seasons Blog Hop.

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  20. These look wonderful! Pinning for later! Thanks so much for sharing on Turn It Up Tuesdays! Have a great week!

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  21. Your Strawberry Cupcakes look delicious and what a fun weekend you have planned! Thanks so much for sharing with Full Plate Thursday and enjoy your weekend!
    Miz Helen

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  22. Wonderful birthday treat and the getaway sounds out of this world. Have fun and thanks for coming to foodie friday.

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  23. I love the heart strawberries :) Happy birthday to your husband. I love getting away and especially when it reminds us of past good times together.
    Thank you for sharing these on Foodie Friday

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  24. These look so good! Thank you for sharing them with us at the HomeAcre Hop!

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