Recipe: Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Balsamic Frosting

Vanilla Cupcakes

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 2 1/4 tsp. baking powder
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temp
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs, room temp
• 1/2 cup milk, room temp
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Heat oven to 350F.
2. Wet Team: Whip butter until it’s light and airy. Add the sugar, mix thoroughly. Add eggs and vanilla, mix thoroughly.
3. Dry Team: Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.
4. Mix half of the Dry Team into the Wet Team. Mix thoroughly.
5. Add milk to mixture. Mix thoroughly.
6. Add remaining dry team to mixture, mix thoroughly.
7. Bake at 350F for 15m.

This yielded 18 cupcakes for me. Came out on the drier side of cake (not too dry, just drier) so next time I might add a tablespoon of vegetable oil.

Strawberry-Balsamic Frosting

• 1 cup butter
• confectioner’s sugar
• 1 cup strawberry puree
• balsamic vinegar

1. To make strawberry puree, hull fresh strawberries and puree them until you have 1c of puree. Sure, that’s obvious, but I figured I’d put it in here anyway.
2. Reduce strawberry puree: Place your 1c strawberry puree over high heat, stirring constantly until boiling, then reduce heat. Stir continuously until you have reduced puree to 1/2 c. Entire process should take about 20m.
3. Whip the butter until it is light and airy.
4. Add some sugar, like, maybe half a cup, IDK, I never measure how much sugar I put in. Mix thoroughly.
5. Add strawberry puree reduction. Mix thoroughly.
6. Keep adding sugar until you’ve attained the right level of sweetness to your liking.
7. Splash in balsamic vinegar, just a splash, mix thoroughly. Taste and repeat as necessary. (All told I likely added 1 1/2 tsp of balsamic vinegar.)

Yields more than enough frosting for all the cupcakes. Could likely frost 24 total cupcakes.