Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes

It isn't quite strawberry season in Ohio, but the strawberries are on a buy one get one free sale. That means I can make lots of delicious strawberry desserts! My immediate thought when I saw this sale was to make strawberry shortcake cupcakes. So I did. And I'm very glad that I did. Doesn't it look delicious? It is very much.

I baked yellow cake from scratch for these cupcakes. I'm not sure that I like the recipe, but it goes well with the strawberries and fluffy white frosting. I may have overbeat the eggs into the batter because the cake fell a bit after baking. Instead of using whipped cream, I used a fluffy white frosting because I can't have too much dairy without getting sick. This frosting makes a good substitute for whipped cream; it isn't too sweet and is very, very fluffy.

Yellow Cake (Printer-friendly PDF Version)

1/2 C shortening

1/2 C butter, softened

2 C sugar

4 eggs

2 2/3 C sifted cake flour

2 1/2 t baking powder

1 C milk

1 1/2 t vanilla

Sift together the sifted-before-measured cake flour and baking powder. Set aside.

Cream together the shortening, butter, and sugar until well blended and kind of fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition. Beat until fluffy.

Alternate mixing in the flour mixture and the milk. The additions should be: flour, milk, flour, milk, flour. Be sure to mix well between each addition and after the final.

Scoop the batter into paper lined muffin cups. Fill the cups 2/3 full with batter.

Bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely.

While the cupcakes are cooling, slice your strawberries and make the fluffy white frosting. The recipe is from allrecipes.com.

Fluffy White Frosting (Printer-friendly PDF Version)

1 C sugar

1/3 c water

1/4 t cream of tartar

2 egg whites

1 t vanilla extract

In a small sauce pan, combine the sugar, water, and cream of tartar. Warm over medium heat while stirring occasionally. Heat the mixture until the sugar dissolves and the mixture starts to bubble.

Meanwhile, beat together the egg whites and vanilla until soft peaks form.

With the mixer on a medium speed, slowly pour the melted sugar mixture into the egg whites. Beat together for 8 minutes or until stiff peaks form. The frosting will be nice and cool by the time it reaches the stiff peak stage.

Assembling

Now you get to assemble the strawberry shortcakes. Excited? You should be! 

First, take a cupcake, peel the liner away from the sides, and set it on a plate.

Next, take a sharp knife and cut the cupcake horizontally into two pieces.

Place some of the frosting on top of the bottom half of the cupcake. Next place some strawberries on top of the fluffy frosting.

Replace the top half of the cupcake. Repeat the frosting and strawberry steps. You can even pretend you are able to make flowers out of the strawberry slices like I did.

Now eat a ton of these because they are delicious.

Enjoy!