Devil's Food and Strawberry Cupcakes

After watching all of the new cupcake shows it's really put me in the mood to bake some cupcakes so when Daniel told me someone at his work was having a picnic for his group this weekend I thought that was the perfect time to make cupcakes. I really wanted to try something different than the normal chocolate or vanilla which is all that most of my cookbooks have (unless you use a cake recipe). Of course, that gave me an excuse to purchase a new cookbook. I decided on the Martha Stewart Cupcakes cookbook. It got good reviews and had lots of recipes. When I asked Daniel what sounded good he said he liked them all but prefers just plain chocolate. So, I decided to make one basic chocolate recipe and one strawberry. Only problem was after going out to dinner on Friday and doing a short run Saturday morning that didn't leave much time for making cupcakes.

Friday night was spent making the strawberry cupcakes (not the frosting). I ended up staying up until midnight. It's amazing how much longer it takes to bake then you think it will. I prefer getting all of the ingredients out prior to mixing anything. I often end up doing that while the butter or eggs come to room temperature. The only complaint I have so far about this cookbook is the lack of weights for measurement, but that's the case with most cookbooks. At least with this one it gives the method for measuring things like flour at the back of the book.

And, my helpers for the night. Don't worry Missy stayed off the countertops I was working on.

Saturday morning after my short run I debated whether I should still make the chocolate cupcakes or just focus on the strawberry since I didn't start as early as planned. I decided to go ahead and make the chocolates ones and simplify the frosting if needed. The devil's food recipe was different than others I had made. It has you melt the butter and sugar together before mixing everything.

After baking the cupcakes and getting ready for the picnic I really only had about 45 minutes to make the icing and ice the cupcakes so I knew that wasn't enough time to make two completely different recipes so I decided to make the basic fluffly vanilla frosting recipe from the book with a minor tweak to make it tolerate the Texas heat a little better, and then for half of the frosting I added pureed strawberries. And, I took the extra 5 minutes to top them with strawberry slices.

I sent Daniel to the store for a second cupcake carrier after lunch so we were all ready to go. Everyone seemed to love the cupcakes at the party. Mine even went better than the ones that someone bought at Sugar Mama's Bakeshop!