Quadruple Strawberry Cupcakes

These cupcakes have four different types of strawberry in them – Strawberry Cake, Strawberry Lime Gin Compote Filling, Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting, and a Chocolate-dipped Strawberry on top. Needless to say, my strawberry-allergic-sister got no where close to these. I made these cupcakes for a surprise baby shower that we threw for a co-worker. The cake was very moist, maybe even a little too moist, but I’ll attribute that to the liquid-y filling. I actually made these the night before and for once, a swiss meringue frosting turned out! Unfortunately, I chilled it overnight and it separated. No amount of beating or adding of powders could solidify it again. I took the remaining strawberry gin compote and tossed it a traditional cream cheese frosting which tasted just as good.

These cupcake liners are Martha Stewart. I splurged on a bunch of them because they were on sale at a local craft store. I wish I would have tried the liners before buying so many – these are not worth it! You would think that Martha Stewart products for the price would be good quality, but these liners are equal or less quality than grocery store brands for about 6x the cost! This is a light, yellow cake with a dark purple and white liner and you can barely see the pattern. *sigh* I might be able to salvage them by baking a pastel muffin liner inside them, but I don’t know if it’d be worth it.

Quadruple Strawberry Cupcakes Recipe

By nicole Published: September 18, 2012

Yield: 12 cupcakes (12 Servings)

This recipe is a combination of a few different sources. This Martha Stewart version is close, but there are a few variations. The gin-strawberry compote is from Saveur, halved.

Ingredients

1⅜ cups all purpose flour
¼ cup cake flour
½ tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter 8 tablespoons
1⅛ cups sugar
¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ eggs
½ egg white
½ cup milk
1 cup strawberries finely chopped (~20)
strawberry gin compote
cream cheese frosting
chocolate-dipped strawberries optional

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners.
Whisk dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cream butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition.
Reduce speed to low. Mix remaining wet ingredients in a bowl. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in 3 additions, alternating with wet ingredients and ending with dry. Scrape sides of bowl and fold in chopped strawberries.
Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each 3/4 full. Bake cupcakes until testers inserted into centers come out clean, about 20 minutes. Let cool in tins on wire racks.
Using an apple corer, remove the center of the cupcakes. Fill with a spoonful of strawberry compote and replace cake "cork".
Make cream cheese frosting and fold in remaining strawberry compote or until desired consistency is obtained. Top with strawberry.
If you want to make chocolate-dipped strawberries, melt some chocolate in the microwave at 50% power or in a double boiler. Dip the strawberries in and shake off excess chocolate before placing on parchment or silicone. Depending on the % of your chocolate, you might need to place the strawberries in the refrigerator to solidify the chocolate again.
To make the compote: Combine ½ lb. strawberries, quartered, 1½ tbsp. Demerara sugar, 1 tsp. dry gin, ⅛ tsp. ground cardamom and the zest and juice of ½ lime in a bowl. Let sit until berries release their juice, about 10 minutes, before using.