Berry Birthday Cupcakes

Berry Birthday Cupcake

My little Bean just had her fourth birthday and somehow quite by accident I managed to share my love of baking with her. So when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday she very quickly popped out the current favorite flavor: Strawberry.

I love strawberries. But I have a super strong aversion to anything "fake" strawberry or strawberry flavored. For me,it just tastes too sweet or sickly and I can't stand it. So my challenge was how on Earth to honor her request while still making something that I would be happy to eat as well.

So I devised a plan to include fresh chopped berries inside a homemade cupcake, and Tada! The Berry Birthday cupcakes were born.

Bean is a good helper

Since this was the little girl's own special day, I decided to let her help me in the process. Which is important because I think that part of the reason my daughter will eat so many great things is because I let her take part in the creation process. I mean, how many kids do you know who choose oranges over french fries, broccoli over mashed potatoes? Heck, even her mom doesn't do that (shhh, don't tell her) but my little girl does and for this I'm eternally grateful.

But with her help comes a massive mess

So Genna and I went to work. We made our own variation on the Nordic Ware Cupcake book's Lemon Cupcake, making it from scratch. I measured, my helper dumped, and as you can tell there was quite a mess.

The cupcakes came out pretty good actually. But there is something off about the consistency than what I'm used to with regular box cake mix. Perhaps they were denser, more like a muffin or crusty top like a biscuit, but they were scrumdiddlyumptious. However, I might experiment with cake flour going forward, just to see how that works out.

Berry filled cupcakes

So then I chopped up the strawberries (no kid help here) super fine and added some blackberries I had on hand to add a bit of juice and color. I didn't sugar them, and I'm still not sure if that was the best plan. The end product tasted good, but the tart was a bit of a surprise in contrast with the lightly sweet cakes. However, look how nice these looked. If anything, before frosting they were a visual masterpiece.

Some look good, some look awful

Of course, for most people, no good cupcake is complete without frosting. Perhaps the problem is that I don't like frosting much. And maybe the frosting knew and wanted to thwart me. Regardless, I followed the accompanying Nordic Ware recipe for a lemon buttercream frosting. The first batch seemed ok, but while trying to put the frosting into the pastry bag, I managed to get the stuff all stuck to the sides and I ended up with a gloopy mess and only about 5-6 frosted cupcakes from the whole batch. By the time round two of frosting came, I don't even know what went wrong. I followed the same recipe exactly, except I subbed bottled lemon juice for the real thing (I was getting stressed and impatient). The end result was something runny that coated like a thick glaze more than a yummy frosting. So, you get an end result that basically looked like a raging mess.

Should have kept them without the frosting, huh? Well, for a first attempt I'm not too let down, though I definitely need to practice the art of frosting - both making and decorating. But I think back on the fun I had making the cupcakes, and I realize this face licking batter made it all totally worth it.

Happiness a la baking

Lemon-Filled Spring Cupcakes

So budgets are tight these days and my solution to this problem is to bake all of my presents. So when my dad's birthday came around, I knew it had to be special. He's a cake connoisseur after all.


What's more, I thought the best way to go about baking would be to have a party. So I invited some besties, threw on a few movies, opened up a bottle of wine and got to baking.


First I admit I totally cheated and used boxed cupcake mix. I used a "springtime" funfetti mix, so the colors were more muted. And I hollowed them out for the important, homemade stuff to come.

  
Then I decided I would try my hand at making lemon curd. Lemon juice, zest, sugar, butter and eggs... how hard can it be? Well apparently pretty hard when you add the butter in at the wrong time! So I scrapped that batch and went for round two. All in all, it turned out great. 

I let this chill overnight, so I actually didn't do the filling until the "afterparty" I held alone the next day. But they looked pretty good when it was all done.

Then I made some homemade cream cheese frosting with some lemon juice and lemon curd thrown in for extra taste.

I had a brand new little pastry bag set, bought for me by the amazing John, but my untrained hand only made a semi-professional looking cupcake. Still I don't think they looked too bad if you asked me.

Everyone who ate these said they were amazing. My comment, is that the cake needs to have a bit more flavor to combat the tartness of the lemon curd. But for a first effort, I'm pretty proud. Thanks to mykitchenaddiction for the lemon curd recipe, and mybakingaddiction for the frosting recipe that I adapted a bit to make my own.