cupcakes, meet mini cupcake pan

Towards the beginning of the summer, I found an awesome, commercial grade mini muffin tin at a garage sale for two dollars. 

I've been waiting for the perfect recipe suited for my tiny tin. Enter, strawberry cupcakes. I've had the idea for cupcakes with strawberry frosting floating around in my head, so with my free time yesterday afternoon, I decided to go for it!

I decided to go with french vanilla cupcakes(yes, I use box mix) and fresh strawberry buttercream frosting.

One thing I do differently when making cake from a box is "upgrading" the add-ins. For example, in these cupcakes, I used milk in place of the water, and melted butter in place of vegetable oil, both in the same amounts suggested by the box.

With the cupcakes in the oven, it was time to get started on the frosting. I made my first frosting several years ago for my Grandma's birthday party. I practiced using several different recipes, and got pretty comfortable with it, so I usually don't follow a recipe now. Basically, I use a mixer to whip one stick of soft butter until it's fluffy. Once fluffy, I start slowly adding in powdered sugar, beating well before I add more. You can add a large amount at a time, but be prepared to cover whatever you're wearing and half your kitchen in powdered sugar (I've definitely gotten impatient towards the end and experienced this myself....). I continue to add powdered sugar until the mixture is very thick. Normally at this point I would add a little milk to bring it to the correct texture, but yesterday I was making strawberry frosting, so I added in a few new steps.

To prepare the strawberries, I washed and chopped them into smallish pieces. I didn't measure, but I probably had around a cup and a half of strawberries. I did a quick search online about strawberry frosting, and read a tip about getting as much juice out of the strawberries as possible so the frosting wouldn't end up too runny. I put the strawberries into a wire strainer, and pressed them against the wire mesh with a large spoon. When I was done, I ended up with a thick, strawberry mush.

I whipped the frosting and strawberries together, and before I knew it, I had a bowl full of beautifully pink, delishiously sweet, yet tart, strawberry buttercream frosting.

And when I was done, I ended up with these adorable little cupcakes.

I sent my boyfriend Will with two plates full to his friends house last night, and they recieved good reviews, except by one person who apparently doesn't like strawberries (who doesn't like strawberries?!? haha). They are totally delicious, if I do say so myself, and the frosting is to die for. Almost too delicious, evidenced by the fact that I can't stop eating these babies! Definitely will be making them again, but not for a while. My next recipe share will hopefully include tomatoes and basil grown on my patio!