Yep, I'm back with a second post today. It's hard enough for me to get up one post a day, never mind two, but Tuesdays with Dorie and the Martha Stewart's Cupcake Club both fell on the same day this month and I didn't want to skip either so let's get to it! This month's MSC recipe was selected by Sherry of Sherry Starts Cooking: strawberry cupcakes. The strawberries are gorgeous right now so it was a perfect seasonal selection. Plus, my mom has a serious love for strawberry cupcakes so I knew exactly who I'd share them with!
As I tried to figure out how to scale this recipe I was talking to Kayte about my biggest problem with Martha's book - the yields for the recipes are so darn high. This recipe makes 34 cupcakes and while there are certainly occasions where you might want 34 cupcakes, I think it's the exception rather than the rule. In any case, I wound up deciding to make 1/3 of the recipe (motivated mainly by my desire to only dirty one cupcake tin). I was working with a limited pantry (I wasn't at home) when I made these cupcakes and didn't have cake flour on hand. I remembered having seen a trick for making it using cornstarch and all-purpose flour so that's just what I did. Basically you substitute 2 tablespoons of cornstarch for 2 tablespoons of flour per cup of flour you're using, then sift them like crazy to make sure the cornstarch is mixed in really well.
I wound up with 11 cupcakes and topped them with freshly whipped cream instead of the strawberry meringue buttercream suggested. I didn't notice it when I was taking the photos of the cupcakes, but as I edited them, it struck me that the whipped cream looks like a cone of soft serve vanilla ice cream on my cupcakes!
I liked the cupcakes - the strawberries kept them moist and I really didn't even think they needed frosting. That said, they weren't a favorite so probably not a repeat here - as much as I love strawberries, something about strawberries in cupcakes just doesn't work for me. My mom enjoyed them though, and since she's the resident expert on strawberry cupcakes, take my opinion with a grain of salt. Lots of thanks to Sherry for her selection this month! We don't post the recipes in this group, but I did a little scouring on Martha's website to dig it up for you - find it here - or on pages 146-147 of Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.
