Girl’s Night In: Strawberry Cupcakes and Martinis

Just so you don’t think all I do is interior design and drive cars I thought I’d share another one of my passions: food.  Love to cook and bake, always have.  One of my childhood chores/duties was baking cookies which I still enjoy.  For me food is about sharing and it is fun to connect with others who have like minded tastes.  The other night one of my foodie friends came over for a little baking. For our “Girl’s Night In” one must properly sensitize the palate so we started with Chocolate Mint Martinis.  (FYI: we made these last all evening and didn’t even finish.)  We snacked on hummus & bruschetta, dined on a quick panini (prosciutto, fresh mozz & arugula) all before the fun began.

We both like to play with recipes, following a bit of this one, part of that one, and tossing in a bit of ingenuity.  Occupational hazard: I have to design everything.  Here is a pictorial of our progress making Strawberry Cupcakes including the link at the bottom for the recipe. Batter is thick to start but turns out glorious.  Love the blue interior of a Wolf Oven, just makes food taste better. 🙂Not satisfied with plain vanilla cupcakes we made filled ones.  Admittedly the strawberry filling was not exactly as the recipe since I used fresh, and then not feeling like it was enough, added more frozen strawberries and cooked the whole combination not just the juices.  Plus not thoroughly reading the recipe, deviated from a cup of water with Whole Foods Strawberry Lemonade and lemon juice plus additional agave & honey for sweetness. Using the handy cupcake corer from Sur La Table made this a breeze. We opted to allow bits of berry in our strawberry buttercream frosting. Yummy!  Not too sweet, tastes just like fresh strawberry ice cream.

The recipe can be found at the Baked Perfection blog.   Her directions are great, and proportions just right.  Enjoy!