Testing the Strawberry Recipe

Ok so as I am preparing for my upcoming event, I had one more recipe to test. Strawberry of course! I know, I know, you would have thought I had a strawberry recipe given my name, Strawberries Cakes, but surprisingly I have never had that request. I love strawberries and so does Logan, my son, and I am determined to demonstrate my love by letting everyone taste a strawberry. Well a good strawberry that is and with that being said I tested a recipe to incorporate strawberries. 

My first test included a basic vanilla recipe in which I substituted frozen strawberries that I let thaw. It was a disaster. The strawberries had thawed but were not room temp so the cupcakes looked great but tasted horrible and had a horrible watery consistency. Now on to the second test that I used fresh strawberries and puréed them and added them to the recipe which worked out perfectly. 

So what did I learn, I need to test the idea of strawberry chunk cupcakes with letting the strawberries thaw to room temp, dry them with a paper towel, and chop them up. Then add to the recipe and go from there which I am going to do but until then I am satisfied with my fresh strawberry cupcake with strawberry icing. I am still working on the icing consistency since the fresh puréed strawberries made it very watery as you can see in the photos. Testing will continue and I will make sure I post the icing when I figure out the perfect formula.

My neighbor doing a taste test :) who doesn't love free cupcakes!