Where it all begins!

Welcome to cb&j…a blog where I hope to share my love of cooking, the joy of food, fun new recipes, probably a few of my cooking disasters and hopefully some laughs along the way. I am certainly not a classically trained, gourmet chef and to enjoy this blog and some great food you don’t have to be either.  All it takes is an open mind, an empty stomach, a willingness to get a little dirty (as you will see from some of the photos I can make a colossal mess sometimes) and at least for me the desire to experiment.  After all, recipes are only guidelines.

One last bit of house keeping before we get to the good stuff.  If interested in receiving regular updates to my blog, be sure to sign up by clicking the “Subscribe to cb&j by Email” link in the top right column.  And please feel free to share this blog with your foodie friends & colleagues.  The larger our little community, the more we will all benefit this blog.

Ok – now to the real reason why you are here.  Cupcakes!  I love cupcakes!  They have that puppy cuteness and are soooo delicious. But I must admit my love affair with cupcakes definitely had its share of setbacks. While I love to make and eat these little puffs of heaven, it seems that often they don’t go exactly as planned. Either the tops are too flat or I over fill the cups or I my decorating leaves a little to be desired. So I had almost given up on cupcakes…until the February issue of Martha Stewart hit the stands and out poured a dozen of the cutest, most delicious looking cupcakes ever.

I spent an entire Saturday afternoon baking cupcakes…5 different flavors to be exact and I was about to start on the 6th flavor when my dear husband came in from working in the garage and staged an intervention…with 90 cupcakes spread across the kitchen counters I think it was well deserved.

Of the five different flavors, the one that got the best reviews was the strawberry cupcake with strawberry butter cream frosting. And I will say that it was perfectly divine so I tucked the recipe away and promised I would make it again for my very first blog entry.

Now fast forward to this past Sunday. Armed with my fresh strawberries, softened butter, and egg whites I went to work. Everything was going so nicely. I beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, folded them into the batter (which makes the cupcakes so light and airy), puréed the strawberries, mixed the wet and dry ingredients together and popped those babies into oven…now comes the disaster. The butter cream frosting. In case you guys didn’t know this – powdered sugar makes a HUGE mess. I had that stuff everywhere but that’s what husbands are for (just kidding steve)  The main problem was the strawberries…for some reason they made the frosting curdle…bleh! Curdled frosting is the worst. At that point I was panicking…how was I going to have a beautiful cupcake for my blog with curdled frosting?!  After surveying my left over supplies, I decided upon a strawberry whipped cream frosting with puréed strawberries and it was perfect. I think it was better than the butter cream! It added a light and refreshing finish to an already light cupcake and all was right with the world.

So here she is…Martha Stewart’s Strawberry Cupcake with a Chassie twist.

Makes 30 cupcakes. 25 minutes prep time and 22 minutes cook time.

3 1/4 cups sifted cake flour (not self-rising)
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
7 ounces (1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
5 large egg whites, room temperature
1 pint strawberries, hulled and puréed (or chopped finely)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cream butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy.

2. Reduce speed to low. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in 3 additions, alternating with wet ingredients (milk and vanilla) and ending with dry. Scrape sides of bowl. Fold in the egg whites and a little more than half of the strawberries. Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each 2/3 full.

3. Bake cupcakes until testers inserted into centers come out clean, about 22 minutes. Let cool in tins on wire racks. Once the cupcakes are cool spoon on the frosting and enjoy!

Strawberry Whipped Cream Frosting

3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat heavy cream in mixer on high until starting to thicken, about 2 minutes. Add sugar and vanilla. Finish mixing until you’ve reached your desired thickness.