If you saw my earlier post I mentioned that Dave and myself went to Grove Farm PYO (Pick Your Own) last week and we got lots of fruit and vegetables - it's still early in the season so we managed to get some strawberries, raspberries, courgettes, onions and spinach.
I love fruit picking - it's lots of fun and it's an enjoyable half-day out. Sometimes though we get carried away with the amount of fruit we pick and it starts to go bad. This year I didn't want to waste anything so I decided to throw the last half of my strawberries into a vanilla cupcake recipe. The result was some amazing gooey-strawberry cupcakes. I then decided that I wasn't in the mood for buttercream icing so made a cool-strawberry coulis to go on top.
They were amazing and yummy! The recipe is below:
Ingredients (cupcake batter):
125g self raising flour
125g caster sugar
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
125g soft, unsalted butter (very soft!!)
2 large eggs
1 1/2 tbsp milk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 170°C and line a cupcake/muffin tray with 12 cases.
2. In a sieve over the mixing bowl - add the flour, caster sugar and bicarbonate of soda and sift them.
3. Add 125g of butter.
4. Add 2 large eggs.
5. Start the mixer on a low speed until everything is just mixed and then turn up to medium to high for 1 minute.
6. With the mixer on a low speed add the milk and vanilla extract.
7. Put the mixer back up to medium to high speed for one last blast (about 30 seconds).
8. Stop the mixer, remove the paddle and get as much batter off as you can. Scrape the sides with a spatula and give a final mix with the spatula to catch anything missed by the paddle at the bottom.
9. Cut the strawberries into small-square chucks - you can decide on the amount. I used about 15 strawberries - and they were a combination of small and large.
10. Add to the batter but use a spatula to gently fold them in DO NOT use the mixer to mix them or you'll end up with a wet slushy batter.
11. Using a dessert spoon and teaspoon scoop the batter into the cupcake cases
12. Bake for 22 minutes in the pre-heated oven. Check with a skewer - it should come out clean.
13. Leave in tray for 5-10 minutes and then transfer to a wire cooling rack.
Ingredients (coulis):
10 strawberries in chunks (going in a food processor)
25g caster sugar
5 strawberries cut into small square (similar to size for the cupcakes)
Method:
1. Pop the chunks of strawberries into the food processor and pulse until you have a puree and there are no chunks left.
2. Add the caster sugar and pulse until combined.
3. Pass through a sieve into a jug/bowl to remove pulp and seeds.
4. Add the chunks of smaller strawberries.
You can then plate up the cupcakes and just before serving - put a spoonful of the chunky strawberry coulis on top and if feeling fancy dust with a sprinkle of icing sugar.
Let me know in the comments what you think!!
