Victoria Cupakes

Feeling a bit indecisive about what to make for our first posting, I decided to start with something simple and almost always a winner amongst even the pickiest of eaters: the cupcake. Having just received a living room full of wedding presents, I chose the recipe out of one of my newly acquired cookbooks - Cupcake Heaven. Not quite wanting to say goodbye to summer, I selected a recipe worthy of an outdoor picnic or BBQ, with fresh strawberries and homemade whip cream. They are almost more strawberry shortcake-esque than cupcake. Now if I only could have braved the rain this morning and got fresh strawberries from the Ballard farmer's market...sigh...QFC will have to do.

This is only the first recipe I've made from this book, so I can't really vouch for it's yumminess yet. Most of the recipes look pretty tasty, or at least have interesting presentations.

The recipe is extremely straightforward:

Ingredients

• 1 stick of unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 1/2 cup of granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup self-rising flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

To Decorate

• 2 Tablespoons strawberry Jam (I like Bonne Maman)
• 3/4 cup heavy cream (add some vanilla extract if you are using a whip cream maker to sweeten the mixture)
  
• 8 oz strawberries, thickly sliced
• confectioners' sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Beat the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy, then beat in the eggs, one at a time. Combine the flour and baking powder and sift into the mixture. Fold in, then stir in the vanilla extract.

Spoon the mixture into the paper liners and bake in the preheated oven for about 17 minutes until risen and golden and a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

To decorate, using a serrated knife, carefully slice the top off each cupcake, down to the level of the paper liner. Spread each cupcake with about 1/2 teaspoon jelly.

Whip the cream and spoon on top of the jelly-covered cupcakes, then top with slices of strawberries. Replace the top of each cupcake and dust with confectioners' sugar.

Notes: Next time I would double the batter recipe as the cupcakes did not rise high enough to cup the tops off nicely. I would recommend making these cupcakes for an outdoor picnic or BBQ where you know they will be eaten right away. I anticipate these will end up a soggy mess of whip cream by tomorrow afternoon.

Makes 12

One of my favorite kitchen tools is my whip cream maker. Though sort of pricey, I think it's worth it as I'm sort of a snob about store bought whip cream and don't really enjoy standing around for 10-15 minutes whipping my cream into stiff peaks.

I generally use 1 pint of heavy whipping cream and add about 1-2 teaspoons of vanilla extract for a little sweetness. The whip cream only lasts about about 1 week, so make sure and thoroughly clean the container after it's expired.