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