"Strawberry shortcake" cupcakes

The first thing you might wonder in seeing this post is why is strawberry shortcake in quotes?  Well because these aren't really strawberry shortcake cupcakes, but rather cupcakes based loosely on the idea of strawberry shortcake.  See I started off with my Fluffernutter Cupcakes.  Then I made the PB&J Cupcakes.  I was kinda on a roll when it came to filling cupcakes, and creating them, if I do say so myself.  So I had filled my PB&J cupcakes with strawberry jelly, and as I was looking at them I started thinking about what else might be good to top them with.  Then I took out the cream to make the icing and it clicked: whipped cream!  But then I thought that that's not really strawberry shortcake-like, with strawberry jam, and decided to fill the craters of my cupcakes with diced fresh strawberries and top them with some homemade slightly sweetened whipped cream and a few more pieces of fresh strawberry.

Then, I realized that it was July 4th this weekend, and figured that these would be perfectly patriotic!  I even debated making a blueberry whipped cream to top them, but decided that the strawberry-whipped cream combo didn't need anything added to it, and stuck with the plain whipped cream topping.  And I even dug up some July 4th cupcake liners for the occasion!

Confession: I love strawberry shortcake!  I mean honestly, what's not to love about fresh sweet juicy strawberries and light fluffy mildly sweet whipped cream?  I don't even eat the "shortcake" part, because the other two are so much better.  So I decided to use my go-to yellow cake cupcake recipe, because it's light and mildly flavored and I thought it would go deliciously well with the strawberries and whipped cream!

"Strawberry Shortcake" Cupcakes

Cupcake idea by yours truly, each component listed with it's source

Yellow Cake Cupcakes

From SmittenKitchen (and featured on the blog here, here, and here -- to name a few)

Ingredients:

4 cups plus 2 Tbsp cake flour (not self-rising)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon table salt

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened

2 cups sugar

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

4 large eggs, at room temperature

2 cups buttermilk, well-shaken

Fresh strawberries, diced small
Blueberries or sliced strawberries for decoration (I only suggest blueberries if you're planning to make these for July 4th.  The blueberries with the white of the whipped cream and the red of the strawberries is very patriotic.)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F.

Line a cupcake tin with liners.

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl.

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy.

Beat in vanilla.

Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well and scraping down the bowl after each addition. 

At low speed, beat in buttermilk until just combined (mixture will look curdled).

Add flour mixture in 3 batches, mixing until each addition is just incorporated.

Fill the baking cups about 2/3 of the way full.

Bang the pan against the counter a few time to let out air bubbles.

Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, about 15 minutes.

Cool in pan on a rack for 10 minutes, then remove from the pan and allow to cool completely.

Whipped Cream Icing

Ingredients:

2 cups fresh cream
Powdered sugar, to taste.

Directions:

In a bowl, whip the cream on high with an electric hand mixer until soft peaks form.
Add in powdered sugar to taste and whip until stiff peaks form.
Add whipped cream to a piping bag fitted with the tip of your choice.

Assembly

Once completely cooled, cut a small crater in the center of each cupcake with a small paring knife or very carefully with a melon baller (these cupcakes are very fragile).

Gently spoon diced strawberries (about 1-1.5 teaspoons) into the newly cut hole in the center.  

Using the piping tip of your choice (I used a star tip), pipe whipped cream onto filled cupcakes. 
Top with a slice of strawberry (or cherries or blueberries for a patriotic twist). 
Keep cupcakes in the fridge until just before serving.

Dried cranberry and white chocolate chip cookies

July 4th is not a holiday that I get off from work.  Unless I take a vacation day, which I just never think to do.  So on any typical July 4th, I usually come home from work exhausted and watch the fireworks on television.  Except for the one year that they opened up the roof of my building and that year I came home from work and watched them from up there.  Admittedly, the view was pretty awesome.

This year, July 4th falls on a Thursday.  Which is, of course, my late night at work.  So I'll rush over to B's after work to watch the fireworks from his building's roof deck (he lives closer to my office than I do, plus they didn't let us go on my roof last year, so I presume it's not going to be open again this year).

So, suffice it to say, I haven't really had a reason to bake for July 4th in quite some time.  Because I'm rushing from work to B's, I'm pretty sure I am not going to be schlepping cupcakes or a cake from home to work to B's. 

But, I wanted to bake today, and ended up deciding that I really wanted to have those white chocolate chip and dried cranberry cookies that I had set out to bake last month.  And then you know what I realized?  They're red and white!  I thought about adding some blueberries so that they were red, white, and blue for July 4th, but didn't think that would be too tasty.  So I went with red and white cookies for July 4th.  And the best part?  They're cookies, so they're totally transportable (may not be an actual word, but you know what I mean.).  In hindsight, I could have added dried blueberries, which would've added the blue and would have probably tasted good.  Maybe I'll try those out soon. 

Now those of you that actually know me know that I'm a little Type A/OCD (although my dad would claim that I'm not just a little type A - I believe that his actual quote was "you're not laid back, you're type A, cubed"), so I like my cookies uniform in size.  So I used my little cookie scooper.  But I find it hard to use on refridgerated dough, so this time I didn't let the dough chill and just baked them as soon as the dough was done, but baked them for 7 minutes instead of 8-9.  But the first batch still came out a little domed, and I thought about flattening the following batches, but these fell a little after the cooled, so I didn't need to.  And, as you already know, I love all things mini (OK, almost all things mini), so the cookies are small.  Which may explain why I got 75 cookies out of this batch of dough (although the original said it makes 2.5 dozen, or 30 cookies).

*And, of course, after I wrote this whole blog post, my schedule at work got changed, and guess what....I'm not working on July 4th!  Go figure.*

Soft Baked White Chocolate Chip and Dried Cranberry Cookies
From Sally's Baking Addiction

Ingredients:

 

3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg, at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup white chocolate chips

3/4 cup dried cranberries

 

Directions:

 

Line an ungreased cookie sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat.

Set aside.

 

In a large bowl using a hand-held mixer or stand mixer with paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugars together on medium speed until fluffy and light in color.

Mix in egg and vanilla.

Scrape down the sides as needed.

On low speed, mix in flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt.

Stir in white chocolate chips and dried cranberries.

 

Chill dough (covered) for 30 minutes or up to 3 days -- I skipped this part.

 

Preheat oven to 350F.

Drop balls of dough onto cookie sheet OR used a standard-sized cookie scoop.

Bake for 8-9 minutes, until barely golden brown around the edges -- I baked mine for 6-7 minutes. Do NOT cook them longer than 9 minutes.

Remove and let cool for 5-10 minutes on the cookie sheet (If cookies do not spread at all, gently press down with a spoon when they come out of the oven.)

Transfer to cooling rack.