FROSTED STRAWBERRY ORANGE CHOCOLATE-CHIP CUPCAKES…Strawberry fields forever!

Frosted Strawberry Orange Chocolate-chips Cupcakes…merging flavours!

I was making mini vanilla cupcakes for a friend’s daughters’ birthday the other day,& had some batter leftover. With Arfi’s Cupcake Spectacular 2008 on my mind, I scrabbled around in the fridge looking for something different I could put together…other than a regular vanilla muffin. AHA…found 4 strawberries which were crying out to be used! Further exploration revealed some oranges too, so I set to work. These cupcakes were flavoured beautifully & made luscious little bites…good enough for dessert too; can’t go wrong with strawberry, orange & chocolate! Topped them off with a strawberry buttercream & a chocolate ganache!

A cupcake (the common US term) or fairy cake (the common British term) is a small cake designed to serve one person, usually made in a small paper cup container. As with larger cakes, frosting and other cake decorations, such as sprinkles, are defining characteristics of modern cupcakes.
Cupcakes are often served during a celebration, such as children’s classroom birthday parties. Additionally they can be served as an accompaniment to afternoon tea.A simple cupcake uses the same ingredients as most other standard cakes – incorporating butter, sugar, eggs, and flour.

Actually I don’t make cupcakes that often anymore. I reserve them for birthdays or gifts, & normally make muffins at home because I find them more wholesome, like these ‘Banana-Walnut-Chocolate chips’ ones that I made this morning. They have some whole wheat flour thrown in too! The recipe is here is you wanna take a look at it.

Back to the CUPCAKE story…While making the vanilla mini cupcakes, the mind was working overtime. I didn’t have an after school snack ready that day; necessity being the mother of invention (of hungry kids), the batter couldn’t have been leftover at a better time! I believe the cupcakes were finger-licking good…the kids enjoyed them! I used a buttercream frosting I once found on the net. It’s known as ‘Kittencal’s Buttercream Frosting‘ & is really very good. licking the buttercream off was the kids slurpiest moment!

Ingredients:

Butter – 1/2 cup
Sugar – 1 1/4 cups
Eggs – 2 large
Flour – 2 cups
Baking powder – 2 tsps
Salt – 1/4 tsp
Strawberries – 100 gms /chopped
Strawberry essence – 1 tsp
Zest of 1 orange
Milk – 1 cup
Chocolate-chips – 1/2 cup

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Line a 12 muffin tray (this recipe makes 18 cupcakes)
• Sift the flour + baking powder + salt 3 times. Set aside.
• Cream the butter with sugar, followed by the eggs & strawberry essence.
• Beat in the chopped strawberries & zest.

• Add 1/3 of the flour & mix in on low speed, followed by 1/3 of the milk. Repeat 2 more times.
• Fold in the chocolate chips & pour into cupcake liners filling it 2/3 full.
• Bake for 20 minutes till golden brown…& smelling divine!
• Remove from tray & cool completely on rack.

Ingredients for frosting:

Butter – 6 tbsps (softened)
Cream – 3 tbsps (35% fat; or you may use 18% cream or half and half or full-fat milk, but will not be as creamy)
Icing Sugar – 3 cups
Essence & colours as required ( I used 1 tsp of strawberry essence & a few drops of pink colour)

Method:

• Beat the butter till creamy. Add the cream & icing sugar & whip till you reach the desired consistency. Flavour & colour as required!
• Pipe onto cooled cupcakes & decorate with sprinkles, sliced strawberries, dragees, chocolate leaves, ganache…

Frosted Strawberry Orange Chocolate-chip Cupcakes…

My entry for Cupcake Spectacular 2008 @ HomemadeS!

And while the mind was humming the Beatles number ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, Elly’s blog event, ‘Eat to the Beat‘ was rocking my mind. Elly @ Elly Says Opa says “I love music as much as I love food, so combining the two for my first try at hosting a blog event was a given. I’m excited to present to you Eat to the Beat–my foray into hosting a blog event. I really hope that many of you will have the chance to participate! For this event, please make and blog about a food or drink that somehow relates to a song, an album, a band, etc.”

There you go Elly….my mind is rocking to ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ & its a great idea to merge two inseparables…music & food! You ROCK!!! Am looking forward to the next one already!!