Strawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry-Lime Frosting...bring on Summer!

So I am blogging all out of order at the moment.  I literally have a zillion bakes to blog about! but I've moved this one to the top of the list.

I made these cupcakes last month when we had that amazing week of sunshine and WARM weather! With the luck we have here in the UK that's probably our summer come and gone! so I hope you all enjoyed it! which is also why even though I had spent the whole previous day doing a double bake fest with some uni friends (that post will be coming shortly too) when we got invited to a Sunday BBQ with some friends of ours from church, I couldn't pass up the chance to bake again.  After all, I know that our BBQ days are probably numbered!

I also had a little bowl of strawberry puree left over from the bake fest that was calling out to be used up.  I decided it would only be right to whip up some strawberry cupcakes, so I was pretty pleased to find this Sprinkles recipe from Martha's website.  Sprinkles Cupcakes is one of the biggest best know cupcakeries in the world! So these cupcakes should have been amazing right? Well, I've come to learn recently, first hand, that the recipes bakeries publish in recipe books/online are not actually the real recipes they use - shocker I know!

So for me these cupcakes were just okay, they did have a lovely strawberry flavour but they weren't moist enough for me.

Luckily, the frosting was the star of the show and so I wasn't too sad about the non amazing cupcakes themselves.



As I was getting ready to make some strawberry frosting I decided that strawberry cupcakes plus strawberry frosting was a little too much.  I knew I needed to think of a good flavour to pair strawberry with in the frosting and that's when it came to me - LIME!
Let me tell you, I am a lime lover and a half.  As in, I eat limes whole! Obviously, minus the skin...but I like nothing better than buying a bag of limes and cutting them in half and eating them with a spoon!
Why had I never thought of lime and strawberry before? Byron was skeptical when I excitedly told him my idea, he asked if it had been done before and was clearly not on board! So I googled it just to reassure him that other people had tried it and it had worked out okay for them!

So I just went with it and whipped up the strawberry frosting, then taking a small amount I added some lime juice and lime zest and after Byron tried it to confirm it was completely delicious I unleashed the lime goodness on my whole batch of frosting.

The next day right before the BBQ, I chopped up some fresh strawberry pieces to top each cupcake.



Seriously that is how crazy blue the sky was on the beautiful sunny day we ate them! So I just had to take a picture.  It hasn't been that blue or sunny since - I'm waiting very patiently for both to return, but I'm not holding out much hope!

Tonight I am blogging and procrastinating an essay I should be writing, what's new! Are any of you procrastinating something you should be doing? Share it with me below and help me feel better about my own laziness and aversion to uni work!

Strawberry Cupcakes:
Makes 24 mini's or 12 regular
From Sprinkles Cupcakes via Martha Stewart

80g pureed strawberry (you will need a little extra for the frosting too)

187g plain flour, sifted

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

50ml semi-skimmed milk

1 large egg, at room temperature

2 large egg whites, at room temperature

113g unsalted butter, at room temperature

225g caster sugar

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

Place strawberries in a small food processor and process until pureed.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.  In a small bowl, mix together the milk, vanilla extract and strawberry puree.  Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter on medium-high speed, until light and fluffy.  Gradually add sugar and continue to beat until well combined.  Reduce the mixer speed to medium and slowly add the egg and egg whites until just blended.

With the mixer on low, slowly add half the flour mixture and mix until blended.  Then add half the milk mixture and repeat the process one more time.

Divide batter evenly among cupcake cases, filling them 2/3 full.  Bake mini's for 12-15 minutes and regular sized cupcakes for 22-25 minutes or until tops are just dry to the touch.
Leave to cool in tins for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

Strawberry Lime Frosting:
Makes enough to frost the above
From Cupcake Crazy Gem

1 tsp lime zest
1 tbsp lime juice

1 1/2 tbsp strawberry puree

400g icing sugar

250g unsalted butter

In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sifted icing sugar until well blended.
Add the puree and beat again.
Add the lime zest and lime juice.  Beat until just incorporated and then taste.
I was making these for a crowd of people and I didn't know their feelings on lime so I kept it subtle, if you're really big lime lovers then add more juice/zest to suit your tastebuds.

Eat, enjoy and dream of summer days!