Cafe Lula

Today I had a baking disaster. Want to see?

These were meant to be delicious strawberry cupcakes. Instead, they were a bit of a collapsey mess. I threw a small tantrum. Then I remembered a strawberry cupcake recipe I’d used a while ago which had made very good cakes, but the icing hadn’t been quite right. I decided to make those instead and play around with the icing. I have a few strawberry icing recipes favourited so I thought I’d try one of those. The icing I used was really good, but could be slightly firmer. Maybe use a bit less butter or cream cheese and a bit more icing sugar.

Important: This is my mum’s black pepper grinder. She got it when we went to Disney World a few years ago and I want to steal it.

This is a cheaty food processor recipe and it is ace. I especially like the bit where the flour goes pink.

These are the cupcake cases I used. They have strawberries on. I love them.

Tada! No collapsey messes.

Aren’t they pretty? They’re yummy too. If you’re wondering what happened to the ones that went wrong, I discovered that they actually taste really good. They are now in my freezer to be used next time I make trifle 😀

Strawberry cupcakes

From Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery

Makes: Book says 12, I say 16

Ingredients:

225g caster sugar

210g self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

25g cornflour (I didn’t have any so I just substituted more flour)

125g fresh, ripe strawberries, hulled and crushed

225g unsalted butter, at room temperature (I used lightly salted)

4 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 160C and line a 12-hole muffin tray with cupcakes cases (you might find you need another tray when you come to fill the cases).

Put the sugar, flour, baking powder, cornflour and strawberries into a food processor and process until evenly mixed. This doesn’t take long at all, just a few seconds. Add the butter and eggs and process until even.

If you would rather do this by hand, cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time and then add the remaining ingredients and beat well.

Fill the cupcake cases about two-thirds full of mixture and bake in the oven for about 25 minutes, checking after 20. The cakes will still be quite moist when cooked.

Leave the cakes to cool in the tins for 10 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Strawberry icing

Adapted slightly from Annie’s Eats

Made enough to ice all the cupcakes plus some left over

Ingredients:

50g strawberries, hulled

230g cream cheese, at room temperature

170g butter, at room temperature

250g icing sugar, sifted

1/2 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla extract

Puree the strawberries with a hand blender and strain through a sieve to remove the seeds. In another bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter until smooth and fluffy. Add the icing sugar and mix until smooth. Add the lemon juice and vanilla and mix. Add the strawberry puree, mix and then ice the cooled cupcakes.