Chocolate Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting

These Chocolate Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting.  Fresh strawberry frosting, I might add.  Ahhh!! Be still my beating heart…

(And let me purchase this Pavlovian Conditioning Wristband for over-eating before I dig in to these beauties… ) ((<– Just included for Lol’s))

Just consider: pillowy soft and moist chocolate cupcakes, topped with a delicately sweet and decidedly fruity strawberry buttercream.  And also imagine: no unnecessary piping bags or equipment to create a beautiful bakery-esque frosting swirl.  (Ziplocks are how I roll around here at The Gourmet Gourmand kitchen).

Basically, these cupcakes are my favorites.  I know there are a lot of cupcake recipes on the internet.  And please don’t flatter me with the inappropriate credit of inventing this recipe myself (although I kind of invented the frosting).  The cupcake recipe was snagged from The Cupcake Project, where the author created 7 rounds of cupcakes that were taste-tested by a panel of judges.  And the recipe included here is the one that they preferred.  And I absolutely loved it as well.

The texture ended up being soft and moist, but definitely dense enough to hold up to a hefty mound of frosting.  The flavor was decidedly chocolately and incorporated a combination of melted chocolate as well as cocoa powder.  Dream. Come. True.  I did not use any coffee to punch up the cocoa flavor, and didn’t miss it, but if you can’t imagine chocolate baking without, you are welcome to add 1 teaspoon of instant coffee/ espresso powder to the batter.Now the strawberry buttercream was a recipe invented in my own head. I basically took a whole bunch (read: 1/2 pound) of fresh strawberries, pureed them with a little water in the blender, and then cooked the heck out of them in a saucepan.

The idea with any fresh fruit frosting is that you need to remove a huge amount of the liquid from the fruit or else you’ll end up with a weeping, seeping mess.  No one wants that.

So be prepared to watch and stir for a while as the strawberry puree cooks down, or buy yourself some strawberry jam to use instead.  The puree will get kind of frothy for a while and then eventually settle down.  The color should darken slightly.  You’ll know its ready when it’s popping and spluttering similar to cooked polenta or grits, and have a similar consistency. After you’ve prepared your puree, make sure to strain it well with a fine mesh sieve to remove the seeds.  My technique here is to “assist” by mashing it back and forth with a rubber spatula until the seedless puree seeps through.  It should be thick enough that this will be required- it shouldn’t all pour through by itself.  You will need to scrape off the bottom of the sieve to access all your lovely puree.

Volume-wise I ended up with about 5 tablespoons of puree.

Then proceed to whip up a buttercream as you normally would- butter and powdered sugar.  And add that beautiful strawberry puree to add a punch of tangy strawberry flavor.  

Decorate as you see fit!  Enjoy!

Chocolate Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting

Adapted from The Cupcake Project

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Prep Time 20 minutes mins

Cook Time 21 minutes mins

Ingredients

  

_For the Chocolate Cupcakes_

• ¼ cup butter ½ stick, room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 oz semi-sweet baking chocolate
• 2 large eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup full-fat sour cream
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ cup cocoa powder
• ½ cup room temperature water
• 1 teaspoon instant coffee or espresso powder optional

_For the strawberry frosting_

• 8 oz strawberries
• 2 tablespoons water if needed
• ½ cup butter 1 stick, room temperature.
• 3 cups powdered sugar

Instructions

 

For the Chocolate Cupcakes

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake tin with baking cups, or grease with cooking spray.
• Melt chocolate in a double boiler over medium heat. Remove and set aside to cool to approximately room temperature.
• In a large bowl combine butter and sugar. Mix on medium speed until butter is incorporated into sugar and it is the texture of wet sand.
• Add in melted chocolate and mix thoroughly. Next add eggs and egg yolks. Mix until just combined.
• Next add vegetable oil, vanilla, and sour cream. Mix thoroughly.
• In a medium bowl combine dry ingredients- flour, salt, baking powder, and cocoa. Whisk to combine and break up any lumps.
• Pour about ½ of the dry ingredients into the batter. Mix until just combined.
• (If using coffee or espresso powder, mix into water)
• Add ½ of the water and mix.
• Repeat until no ingredients remain.
• Fill cupcake liners until they are about ¾ of the way full.
• Bake for 19-21 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
• Remove from cupcake tin to a wire rack to cool.

To make the strawberry frosting

• Puree strawberries in the blender. If needed, add a few tablespoons of water to assist the puree.
• Pour puree into a small saucepan and cook on medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture reduces and is about the texture of polenta/grits (takes about 6-7 minutes).
• Pour puree through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing on the solids with a spatula, and into a bowl to cool. Puree will be thick.
• Next, in a medium bowl, cream the butter with hand-mixer on medium, until fluffy. Add powdered sugar, a little at a time, until mixed.
• Add 5 tablespoons of puree to the mixture. Mix well.
• Spread or pipe onto cooled cupcakes.