Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

Mom! Mom! Mom! It’s my birfdey and I want strawberry cupcakes. Of course you do. Let’s consult the Baking Goddess and see what marvelous monstrosity we can whip up today! I summon my Baking Goddess at sallysbakingaddiction.com because I’ve never had a recipe fail me from there. I found the most interesting looking strawberry cupcake recipe and today we’re going to try it.

Disclaimer y’all. I cannot follow a damn recipe to save my life. I try. So hard. I need to add some of my own to it. Also, I’m not super accurate when I measure ingredients. I feel my baking. It’s hard to explain.

Prepping the muffins tins and pre-heating the oven. Oddly, at the moment I don’t own a blender. My immersion blender bit the dust, too, so it’s me and my handy yet bulky food processor. Strawberries -puree some, chop some. I actually bought fresh strawberries for this venture.

Eggs. Oh boy, the eggs in this recipe apparently blew people’s minds. I have no idea why it’s so complicated. Take 3 eggs. Separate all the eggs, 1 yolk in a bowl, 2 yolks in the trash, 3 whites in another bowl. Whip the egg whites until they are tall and beautiful. Save the 1 yolk for the cupcake batter.

Now we can make cupcakes! Dry stuff in the bowl, kid will stir (this is also why I don’t measure, half this will land on the counter and get dusted back into the bowl).

Cream the butter, add the sugar. Nothing out of the ordinary so far! Add yolk and vanilla. Alternate flour and milk, flour, milk, flour.

Fold in egg white and the strawberry stuffs. Don’t overmix. Plop into the liners. There will be extra and I have these adorable mini bundt pans thingies so we’re going to throw the remainder in there.

Magic happens in the oven for 20-24 minutes while I clean the kitchen and get ready for this cool-ass looking frosting recipe that I’m really stoked to try! I did overfill my oven because I don’t like to wait for round 2 of baking so it did take about 30 minutes with all the cupcakes and mini bundts.

Let’s turn these freeze dried strawberries into pixie dust!  Here is where the wheels fall off my little bus. I’m going to use ½ a cup of butter and ½ a cup of cream cheese instead of a full cup of butter. The rest is the same. Cream that and add the other stuff.

Looks so pretty! I wish I had some of that edible glitter so we can make these sparkle, but we can add that next time.  Also, I do not have a piping bag or piping tips so we’re going to make this up as we go!

<Add pic of finished cupcakes here>

Abracadabra! Strawberry Cupcakes! Happy 4^th Birthday to my baby girl!

Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

Servings

18

cupcakes

Prep time

30

minutes

Cooking time

24

minutes

Total time

4

hours 

Cupcakes made with fresh strawberries and topped with strawberry cheesecake frosting.

Ingredients

• Cupcakes

• 8 – 9 large strawberries

• 1 large egg (separated) + 2 egg whites, room temp

• 2 cups flour

• 1/4 cup corn starch

• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

• 1 1/2 cups sugar

• 3 tsp vanilla extract

• 1 cup whole milk, room temp

• Frosting

• 1 cup freeze dried strawberries

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temp

• 1/2 cup block cream cheese, room temp

• 4 cups powdered sugar

• 3 Tbsp heavy cream

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 1 pinch of salt to taste

Directions

• Cupcakes
• Preheat oven to 350° F. Line 12 count muffin pan with liners. See notes about extra batter.
• Puree 5 strawberries in a food processor or blender. Chop remaining strawberries and set all aside.
• Beat egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form, about 2 – 3 minutes. Set aside.
• Whisk flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt together. Set aside.
• With a mixer cream the butter 1 minute on high speed. Add sugar and beat on high 3-4 minutes until fluffy. Add 1 egg yolk and vanilla and beat on medium-high until well mixed.
• Add 1/3 of the flour mixture to the fluffy butter and mix on low until just mixed, add 1/2 the milk, mix on low until just mixed. Repeat this process, alternating and ending with flour mixture. Do not overmix.
• Gently fold in strawberries, strawberry puree and egg whites. Batter will be slightly thick and shiny.
• Spoon batter into cupcake liners, filling halfway. You will have a ton of batter left (see notes below).
• Bake for 20 – 24 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.
• Frosting
• In a food processor, pulse the freeze dried strawberries into powder. Set aside. With a mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese on medium until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add powdered sugar, strawberry powder, salt, heavy cream and vanilla mixing on low until combined. Mix on high 3 -4 minutes until light and fluffy. Add more powdered sugar if too thin or more cream if too thick.
  
• Frost completely cooled cupcakes. Store tightly covered at room temp for 1 day or 5 days in the fridge.

Notes

• Extra Batter – You can either wait until the first batch it out and make more cupcakes with the remaining batter or you can use mini bundt pans. Mine baked in the same amount of time. I did bake them at the same time, which is bad because it overcrowds the oven, but they turned out just fine. I had to add an extra 5 minutes to the baking time.
• Strawberries (Fresh vs Frozen) – I did use fresh when I baked them. You can absolutely use frozen, just thaw ahead of time and try to dry as much moisture off as possible so they don’t make soggy spots in your cupcakes.