I love Strawberry Cupcakes!

I love cooking. Baking is still a pretty new thing for me. Apparently there’s a big difference between baking – and cooking. In baking, there’s less room to improvise where in cooking I can improvise to my heart’s content. I used to watch and help mom baked when I was a kid – she’s quite an expert and does it as her side business, none of her baking skills seem to stick with me. My baking experience so far hasn’t been exactly a smooth ride; lots of hiccups that ends up in baking disasters. You name it, I’ve been through all of them: burnt cakes, rubbery undercook bread, flat head muffins, dough that won’t rise and budge, etc. But not today

I wasn’t really planning on baking anything when I saw these beautifully ripe strawberries from Beijing stacked up on a display in the supermarket. They smell soooo sweet. I have to get them. Will decide later what to do with them. Flipping through some cook books, I think I found a recipe from 500 Cupcakes Recipe Book. So simple to make and so wonderfully creamy with quite a distinct strawberry scent in it. Just beautiful!!!

STRAWBERRY CUPCAKES

Ingredients:
* 225 gram unsalted butter – softened
* 225 caster sugar
* 225 self-raising flour
* 1 tsp baking powder
* 4 eggs – room temp
* 1 tsp strawberry essence
* 1 cup chopped fresh strawberries

For ICING:
* 200 gr cream cheese
* 375 gr icing sugar, sieved
* 225 gr unsalted butter, softened
* pink food coloring
* silver balls/sliced fresh strawberries
~ Whisk all with electric whisk until smooth

Directions:
1.) Preheat oven 175C/350F -
prepare baking cases in muffin tins
2.) Combine butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, eggs
Beat with electric whisk until light and creamy
3.) Stir in chopped fresh strawberries
4.) Spoon batter into cases. Bake for 20 mnts
5.) Remove cupcakes, cool on a rack
6.) Spread icing on top of cupcake

Recipe is adopted from 500 Cupcakes Cooking Book