she paints the kitchen red

strawberry cupcakes with meringue frosting

now that it’s the holidays (or so it seems), i’ve got a little bit more time to bake. tonight we’re celebrating a friend’s birthday and since she wanted something “strawberryish”, i decided to try a new cake recipe, martha stewart’s strawberry cupcakes.

the cupcake was sufficiently moist; my personal prerequisite for good cakes/cupcakes. i took a bit of time thinking of what frosting to pair it with – i didn’t want cream cheese (one of my friends doesn’t care much for cheese, a very weird thing i must say) and the thought of buttercream was too cloying. chocolate ganache probably wouldn’t go well with the strawberry… so i settled on a meringue frosting.

3 egg whites
½ cup sugar
¼ tsp cream of tartar

set a metal bowl over a sauce pan with an inch or two of boiling water in it and beat egg whites until foamy. add in cream of tartar and beat until fluffy. add sugar gradually until meringue reaches fairly stiff peaks. spread or swirl onto cooled cupcakes. place in oven (about 150 degrees celsius) for about 5 minutes until lightly browned.

the duo-toned frosting was achieved by “streaking” the insides of the piping bag with gel food colouring; i used a toothpick. since this frosting isn’t particularly sweet, i could afford to load up on it. after the whole act was put together, i realised that these looked more like christmas cupcakes than birthday ones!