Strawberry Poundcake Cupcakes

Ok...so I know it's been a while since my last post. But sometimes, life gets busy, and there's work to do, and June bug's to play with.

I finally made the strawberry poundcake cupcakes...see below for more info; I went to Mexico and came back full of Chilaquiles (super addictive) and Cerveza, and even planted flowers in our front yard; but not without out a million other things to do. Hence, the lack of blog entries lately.

Strawberry Poundcake Cupcakes

If you like strawberry ice cream, I highly recommend. They may not be the prettiest cupcakes, but they are sure to be delicious. So as I mentioned in a previous blog entry, I cheated, and bought box pound cake mix. I mean come on, a girl's gotta have a life and can't always make everything from scratch. It's the semi-homemade concept. Thanks Sandra Lee.

What you'll need:

1 box of Duncan Hines Poundcake mix....produces with generous scoops in the muffin tin approximately 17 cupcakes. Add 1 tsp of Almond Extract to spruce up the box mix. If you don't tell, no one will ever know. Bake for approximately 20 minutes. There were no directions on the box for this, but thanks to cupcakeproject.com; I figured this one out. You can also use the clean toothpick test.

For the icing...I merged two ideas from cupcakeproject.com, My 10 favorite frostings "Strawberry Whipped Cream" + Pioneer Women's Devil Dogs, "That's The Best Icing I've ever had" = My Best Ever Strawberry Like Ice Cream Icing!

So how do you make?

• 5 Tablespoons Flour
• 1 cup Milk
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 1 cup Butter
• 1 cup Granulated Sugar
• 10 - 16 Fresh Strawberries (mashed/pulverized via some form of stress relief, or a food processor works too)

Directions

From Pioneer Woman, see link above: "In a small saucepan, whisk flour into milk and heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens. You want it to be very thick, thicker than cake mix, more like a brownie mix is. Remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature. (If I’m in a hurry, I place the saucepan over ice in the sink for about 10 minutes or so until the mixture cools.) It must be completely cool before you use it in the next step. Stir in vanilla.

While the mixture is cooling, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. You don’t want any sugar graininess left...."

[Then my introduction of fruit inspired by cupcakeproject.com]

Beat in mashed/pulverized strawberries. Use more or less depending on consistency. If strawberries are super juicy, strain some of the juice.

Ok....back to Pioneer Woman's recipe....

"Then add the completely cooled milk/flour/vanilla mixture and beat the living daylights out of it. If it looks separated, you haven’t beaten it enough! Beat it until it all combines and resembles whipped cream."

Before you eat all the icing....frost your cupcakes and enjoy!