On Friday I spent three hours at the car dealership waiting to have my car serviced, and I was delighted to see a single issue of Food & Wine in the waiting room. Usually they just have the Washington Post. As I flipped through the dogeared copy of the magazine, I came upon a test kitchen article entitled, "perfecting the cupcake." The article offered recipes for two different batters, three different frostings, and a long list of suggested toppings to make interesting creations like caramel-pretzel cupcakes, fluffernutter cupcakes, and rocky road cupcakes. I'm sure it was kismet. I'm supplying baked goods for an event my cousin is hosting next weekend, and a couple of weeks ago, she had specifically asked me if I had a strawberry shortcake cupcake recipe that I might be able to use. I didn't, and I wasn't able to find one. But on Friday morning, literally right there in my lap, was a recipe and a beautiful photo of a strawberry shortcake cupcake. I felt the circumstances warranted tearing out a few pages of the magazine to take with me. (Coincidentally enough, I obtained another one of my favorite cupcake recipes from a page I tore out of Food & Wine while waiting for a hair appointment a few years ago.)
The cupcake batter was slightly unusual in that it contained cornstarch, and I think the cornstarch might be responsible for a very odd quality I noticed in the batter. I made a double batch of batter, which ended up yielding 29 cupcakes that I baked one 12-cupcake pan at a time. When I scooped out the batter for the first dozen, immediately after I finished mixing the batter, the batter was extremely thin. Twenty minutes later, when I was scooping out the batter for the next dozen, the batter was considerably thicker. Twenty minutes after that, when I baked the final five cupcakes, the batter was even thicker. Accordingly, the first batch of cupcakes hardly rose at all, the second batch had nice rounded tops, and the final five had pronounced pointy peaks. Weird. If you make these cupcakes, I would advise perhaps letting the batter sit for 20 minutes or so before you bake to allow the batter to thicken a bit.
To make the frosting, I ran a 10 oz. jar of strawberry spreadable fruit through the food processor and incorporated it into a double batch of the buttercream frosting recipe. Even with all that strawberry spreadable fruit, the color was just barely pink and the strawberry flavor was not that strong. I used scalloped green flower cupcake liners thinking that they would create the illusion of a strawberry stem. It didn't exactly work out that way, but I'm still happy with the way the cupcakes turned out. The cupcake itself was nice and moist, and while the frosting was a little on the sweet side, the overall combination of the vanilla cupcake and strawberry frosting was nice. I think that adding some freeze-dried strawberries to the batter would give a nice boost of flavor to these cupcakes and might elevate them to spectacular.
Recipe: "Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes" from Food & Wine, May 2008.
The cupcake batter was slightly unusual in that it contained cornstarch, and I think the cornstarch might be responsible for a very odd quality I noticed in the batter. I made a double batch of batter, which ended up yielding 29 cupcakes that I baked one 12-cupcake pan at a time. When I scooped out the batter for the first dozen, immediately after I finished mixing the batter, the batter was extremely thin. Twenty minutes later, when I was scooping out the batter for the next dozen, the batter was considerably thicker. Twenty minutes after that, when I baked the final five cupcakes, the batter was even thicker. Accordingly, the first batch of cupcakes hardly rose at all, the second batch had nice rounded tops, and the final five had pronounced pointy peaks. Weird. If you make these cupcakes, I would advise perhaps letting the batter sit for 20 minutes or so before you bake to allow the batter to thicken a bit.
To make the frosting, I ran a 10 oz. jar of strawberry spreadable fruit through the food processor and incorporated it into a double batch of the buttercream frosting recipe. Even with all that strawberry spreadable fruit, the color was just barely pink and the strawberry flavor was not that strong. I used scalloped green flower cupcake liners thinking that they would create the illusion of a strawberry stem. It didn't exactly work out that way, but I'm still happy with the way the cupcakes turned out. The cupcake itself was nice and moist, and while the frosting was a little on the sweet side, the overall combination of the vanilla cupcake and strawberry frosting was nice. I think that adding some freeze-dried strawberries to the batter would give a nice boost of flavor to these cupcakes and might elevate them to spectacular.Recipe: "Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes" from Food & Wine, May 2008.
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