Strawberry Short, Handheld, Portable Cakes

My lack of recent blogging is due partly to the fact that I haven't felt like firing up my broken computer to write a little blurb about something that didn't even turn out that good. However, it is mostly due to the fact that I haven't even made anything blog-worthy lately. My life has consisted of frozen pizzas, vegetable stir fry and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches lately. I mean, I guess I could have written about Digiorno vs Freschetta, but come on, no one wants to read that, and everyone knows Digiorno is better anyway. But, we had a potluck at work yesterday which prompted me to get to cooking and in turn, get to blogging. There were about 46 different salads that people had signed up to bring so I didn't want to make #47. We needed a dessert and I knew exactly what I wanted to make. I found this recipe on...you guessed it...Pinterest for Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes. Here is the link to the original recipe. Strawberry Shortcake is my favorite dessert, so if I can make a portable, hand-held, potluck-friendly version, I'm all for it.

 

From this angle it looks like your everyday average cupcake with a strawberry stuck on top, but when you bite into it, that's when the magic happens. 

Not quite strawberry season, but close enough by my standards

 

 

You start by making a pretty regular cupcake batter, except for the large quantities of butter and flour and added baking powder. I guess its really not that regular - but its not quite a shortcake batter (dough?) either - we'll call it a mix between the two. It makes a thick batter that spoons easily into cupcake liners. Bake for 20 minutes and you're in business. Something I learned this go around: I need to invest in another cupcake tin so I don't have to wait 20 minutes, cool, wait 20 minutes, cool, wait 20 minutes until 36 cupcakes are done. 

Once the cupcakes are (finally) cooled, you hollow out the insides. because these babies are about to be stuffed. 

 

Pretty sure I shared this tip once before, but in case I haven't, an icing tip works really well for hollowing out cupcakes. Just shove it in, base side down, and start cranking it in a circle. When you pull it out, it pulls a ball of cake out with it. Then, you can take a tiny spoon, like your 1/8 teaspoon (what else do you really use that for anyway?) and scrape around the edges. You'll notice that some of my strawberries stick up a little higher than the cake but that's not a problem because it will get covered with frosting anyway. 

 The frosting recipe for these is amazing. Its a whipped cream frosting with the addition of cream cheese to make it stand up. The great part is the cream cheese doesn't weigh it down at all, so it still tastes very light and not too sweet. Oh, and another thing I learned: Disposable pastry bags are SO worth the 20 cents per bag. I will never again stand over a sink washing out a stupid pastry bag.

These actually became probably my new favorite cupcake recipe. They look simple enough and they taste like gold, only they won't chip your tooth. We won't talk about the butter and cream content, but that's what makes them so good. 

My rating: A - I will cook them for a minute or so less next time because they ended up almost dry. If they were just a tad more moist then they would be an A+

Co-worker rating: A+ - I believe the phrase "these taste like a bite of Heaven" was used.