So, in my Facebook feed, a week or so before my daughter turned three, this photo began circulating. I'm not sure the exact wording that they used, but I will give credit to the
original post. Hot Moms Club posted a photo of an all pink dress with dazzling jewelry. (the top photo on this post)
I made my own variation for my three-year-old daughter's birthday. Below I detail how I did it.
A related post is "
Easy Egg Yolk Removal".
http://simplysweetbakeshop.blogspot.com/2009/02/best-strawberry-cupcakes.html is where you can find the recipe I used. The recipe stated it would only make 18 cupcakes but I managed to get 21!
After separating the yolks, you mix them in with the creamed butter and sugar
I purchased two flats of strawberries, not knowing exactly how many I would need
Once pureed, I had more than enough from my batches. I was selective and only chose the plump, juicy ones. The ones with green on them did not go into the mix.
The recipe called for one cup of puree. Perhaps you can see that I used slightly more than one cup and that is what stretched my recipe to 21 versus 18 cakes?
When it comes to dairy products, Oregon is known for Tillamook. Their cheese is by far better than any other brand I have tried.
Tupperware makes measuring cups and spoons, and when you actually need an eighth of a teaspoon, well, here you are!
Take all your dry ingredients, mix with your wet ones, her recipe is straight-forward and easy to use
I lined eighteen of my twenty-four cupcake molds
The batter is not truly pink, but has a lavender tint
I have found that using a soup ladle makes filling the cupcakes easier. A friend uses her cake decorating bag which would also be tidy.
As stated before, I had enough batter for twenty-one cupcakes. For the five of us, that seemed like plenty.
The frosting recipe calls for strawberry extract and I used it, but it wasn't as pink as I'd hoped
This is the first time I've seen "six cups of sifted powdered sugar". Do I sift it and then measure? Do I measure and then sift it? I chose to measure six cups, then sift them.
The birthday girl wanted to help sift
She wanted to help mix, but I didn't realize she would put it on high speed
The sifted powdered sugar flies like snow in a blizzard!
No raw eggs on this beater, just sheer strawberry cream cheese delight!
My cupcake dress before it is decorated. In the original, she used more cakes, but I scaled it down for my purposes. I had one extra. This is a twenty-cupcake dress...but I ended up using that last cupcake in the top row to make it look more like the original.
I used a #2 Wilton tip to decorate the cupcakes...and added a couple drops of pink food coloring
Once you've put the frosting on the cupcakes, you'll still have some gaps to fill between the cakes
The softer your frosting, the easier it is to fill in and spread the frosting. See how that last cupcake better added the shape of a dress?
Here is the dress before the bedazzling began. I used the "celebration pearls" as I wanted a lot of color
One of my daughters was trying to help, and accidentally spilled them all over the counter
...and the floor
Even after I'd placed all the pearls, I decided the top half needed more variety and color
And, here is her finished cake. We had a number "3" candle that we placed on it while she wore the crown.
My final thoughts? This was absolutely the best strawberry cupcake recipe I'd ever used and if you wanted to simply make strawberry muffins, you could use it. The cakes are plenty sweet without the frosting!
You can use any colors to make the dress, I've seen people smooth out the frosting on the top and just edge the outline with a tip. The sky is the limit, but you've got to start somewhere.
~Tammy
