Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Cupcakes

These are the cupcakes I made for Calgary's (private) Cupcake Camp... chocolate cake with strawberries, and a strawberry buttercream topped with a strawberry slice and dark chocolate shavings. The cupcakes were adapted from a family chocolate cake recipe.

Cupcakes

1 cup white sugar
3 tbsp. butter
1 egg
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 cup chopped strawberries
boiling water
heaping spoonful of flour

Cream together the sugar and butter. Add the egg (beaten). Put the cocoa in a liquid measuring cup, and add enough boiling water to make 1 cup of liquid. Mix well and add to the sugar/butter/egg mixture. Mix the baking soda with another 1/2 cup boiling water and add that in. Mix 1 cup of flour and baking powder and mix that in. Mix the strawberries with the spoonful of flour. This shold keep the berries from all sinking to the bottom; so if there's not enough flour, add a little more so they're pretty well coated. Fold them in. Divide into 12 paper-lined cupcake tins and bake for 20 minutes at 350^oF.

(The original recipe left out the strawberries and the flour covering them; use a greased and floured 9x9" cake pan and bake for 30 minutes.)

Icing

1 cup strawberries
1/2 cup sugar
juice from half a lemon
1/2 cup butter or margarine
icing sugar

Start by mixing the strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring the mixture to a boil and let it cook down a little (10 minutes or so). Put this into a food processor or blender and mix until no large chunks remain. Let the strawberry sauce cool (I stuck mine in the fridge or freezer if I was in a hurry).

Meanwhile, start prepping the icing base. Cream the butter together with 2 cups of icing sugar. Add 2 tbsp. of the (cooled!) strawberry sauce, mix it in and add 1 more cup of icing sugar. Add 1-2 tbsp. more strawberry sauce to thin it to spreading consistency. (Note: This should be about enough for a dozen cupcakes... if you're doing more, just keep adding 2 tbsp. of sauce alternating with 1 cup of icing sugar until you've got enough icing.)

Frost the cupcakes and top with some chocolate shavings and some strawberry!

I wouldn't do strawberry slices again; they dry out too quickly and start to look funny. The first time I made these I used quartered strawberries and they last much longer. I think the perfect garnish would actually be the tiny whole strawberries you buy at farmer's markets in the summer... they would last much better and wouldn't leak juice on the icing.