Strawberry Cupcakes

It’s been a little longer from my last post than usual as I was on holiday enjoying sunny Madrid with my brother but I’m back! And full of recipe inspiration so I have lots of exciting (I think) recipes to try out! My mum found this one for me in a magazine but it’s actually from Marian Keyes new book Saved by Cake. As it’s chocolate-free it’s perfect for my lent blog posts and full of yummy strawberries!

It’s an unusual recipe in the fact that it uses plain flour and bicarbonate of soda rather than the typical self raising flour for cake making so I made sure to beat the wet ingredients for a long time as I thought it would help get some air in it. It’s a very straightforward recipe and I have to say the hardest part was mashing the strawberries! I’m sure none of you would be silly enough to try and mash something in a round bottomed bowl, but don’t do it, it doesn’t work. I eventually switched to doing in a pasta dish and that was much more successful!

Don’t be put off by the fact that by the time you’ve mixed in the strawberries and the flour the mixture looks a little grey, and that when they come out of the oven they still look a little unusual. Marian Keyes tells you to decorate them pinkly so by the time you’ve finished you, and your friends and family, will be unable to resist and they do genuinely taste delicious.

I just used basic glacé icing following the instructions on the back of the box as I don’t have any piping equipment currently (another shock I know) and I don’t feel buttercream icing applied with the back of a spoon is a very good look. I used some left over strawberry to decorate but obviously there are hundreds and thousands (see what I did there) ways to decorate your finished cakes.

Here is Marian Keyes’ recipe:

200g strawberries, hulled and mashed

100g sunflower oil (I used vegetable oil)

90g caster sugar

2 eggs

180g plain flour

¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Preheat the oven to 180°C

Beat the oil, sugar and eggs together for a few minutes until the mix looks caramelly.

Add the strawberries, sieve in the flour and bicarbonate of soda into the wet mixture and fold.

Pour the batter into the cases and bake for about 20minutes.

Then Lick Your Spoon! (and decorate your cakes pinkly!)