As everyone in the whole galaxy will know, her Majesty’s Jubilee celebrations have been going on all this week (at time of writing). Despite not being able to go up to London or join in with any of the various street parties and festivities happening around Plymouth, I felt like I should do something.
My first thought was Jubilee cupcakes – red, white and blue colours/decoration and some kind of quintessentially English flavour combination. A quick Google search revealed that the Internet was, of course, already awash with Jubilee themed cupcakes so that was a no-go. I wanted something of my own so after some head scratching, I came up with something else – something equally English, really summery and utterly delicious.
If I’m perfectly honest, not many recipes come out perfect for me first time (especially when they involve icing) but these actually did! They should be quite rich and sickly but surprisingly they’re not. The fresh strawberries in the cream give lovely little hits of fresh sweetness and bring it all together beautifully and they just taste fantastic. It’s one of the few recipes created for the Dizzy Dieter that hasn’t needed any changes, tweaks or re-makes.
We had Kieran’s mum and her friend visiting this week and decided to use them as guinea pigs for the Strawberries and Cream cupcakes. We made a fair bit of food, by which I mean a lot! We were worried when they arrived that we had overdone it and to be fair with most of it we had! The only thing we didn’t have any leftovers of when they left were the cupcakes (which is always encouraging when you are testing something new out on people).
Don’t be put off by the piping here. I hate piping, I resent people who are good at it and can produce these beautifully, flawlessly iced cakes that you see on recipe blogs. But I figured that if I’m going to do a recipe blog then I should probably learn how to do it so I invested a little in an icing syringe kit. It’s really fantastic to be honest – comes with everything you could need…..except sadly it didn’t magically equip me with superb icing skills as I had hoped. Hmph!
But seriously, I have had my kit for about 3 weeks and once I got over the initial disappointment that it wasn’t just magically going to make me an icing and piping pro straight off, I started to mess around and experiment with it for practise. I can HIGHLY recommend it to anyone like me who is hopelessly lacking in hand to eye co-ordination and struggles with icing and piping. The icing syringe is so so SO much easier to use than a piping bag and it copes with multiple type of icing – butter cream, this whipped cream icing with the strawberries in it, Royal icing. The little kit I got also included an icing pen, about 12 different shaped nozzles for the syringe, some cream/icing scrapers and a cupcake corer. It’s provided me with hours of entertainment (and probably the neighbours too listening to me yelling at it for the first few hours!).
I have to admit that my previous experience with icing is pretty much limited to buttercream. We tried cream cheese frosting once and we really didn’t like the taste (although it IS much easier to pipe with!). I really wanted some kind of whipped cream icing with the strawberries to get that kind of British summer/Wimbledon strawberries and cream flavour into the cupcakes which is what led me to make the fortified whipped cream. If you’ve never tried it, the texture is somewhere between standard whipped cream and dream topping that you put on top of trifles. It is sweetened and reinforced by the icing sugar but the strawberries cut through so the overall cupcake is fresh and not too sweet. A stroke of genius – if I do say so myself!
In all honesty, these cupcakes are so simple and you don’t need excellent piping skills anyway because that little slice of fresh strawberry on top hides a multitude of sins, trust me! Plus, another little bonus feature is that because you core the cupcakes for the jam filling, you get a little bowl of cake bites in case you get peckish while icing and decorating them! Sadly this is my last indulgence for a while as I’ve decided to get strict on the diet again from tomorrow – weighing once a week and everything. Sad face…….
So do let me know what you think of the Strawberries and Cream cupcakes via the comments or by using the Contact Me form on the site. I’m also on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram so feel free to tag me in your posts – I love hearing from you! Enjoy DDx.
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Strawberries and Cream Cupcakes
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 12 1x
Description
Vanilla cupcakes with a strawberry centre, topped with a fortified whipped cream with diced strawberries and a slice of fresh strawberry!
Ingredients
For the cakes
- 110 g caster sugar
- 110 g unsalted butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 110 g self raising flour
- 2 tablespoons milk ( I used semi-skimmed)
- Strawberry jam, for filling
For the whipped cream icing and decoration
- 375 ml double cream
- 45 g icing sugar, sifted
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 good sized strawberries, finely diced
- 3 good sized strawberries, sliced for decorating the tops of the finished cakes
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180° / fan 160° / 350°. Line a 12-hole cupcake/muffin tin with paper cupcake cases.
- Put the caster sugar and softened butter in a large mixing bowl and beat together with an electric mixer until fluffy.
- In a separate bowl or jug, lightly beat the eggs with the vanilla extract. Beat into the butter a little bit at a time.
- At this point, put a bowl and your electric whisk blades in the fridge to chill – this sounds odd but it helps get the consistency of the icing right.
- Sift the flour into the butter/sugar mix, add the milk and then fold together gently until you have a smooth mix. The cake batter should be a soft dropping consistency – you can add a little milk if it seems too thick.
- Spoon evenly into the paper cases – each one should be about half full. Leave to settle for a few minutes (this should help give you flatter tops for easier icing but don’t worry too much).
- Bake for around 15 minutes until lightly golden and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Allow to cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- When the cupcakes are cooled, core them using a cupcake corer. Fill the centre with strawberry jam.
- Put the whipped cream in the chilled bowl and beat with the chilled mixer blades until it begins to go frothy and bubbly.
- With the mixer going add the vanilla extract and then the icing sugar a bit at a time, continuously beating. Continue to whip until the cream holds its shape – it’s good to stop and test it occasionally as we don’t want to over whip it.
- Add the diced strawberries and fold them in gently.
- Pipe the cream onto the cupcakes and top with a slice of strawberry, pushing it gently down into the cream so it stays in position.
- Store the finished cupcakes in the fridge – you can remove them about 30 minutes before you want to serve them to bring them up to room temperature.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
