Martha Stewart's Strawberry Cupcakes

I love food challenges and so I was thrilled when Sugar Betty of MS: Cupcake Club opened up her cupcake challenge to everyone.  I've had Martha Stewart's cupcake book for well over a year now and have only tried one or two recipes from it.  Part of my problem is if I make the things then chances are I'm going to have to eat them!  I'm trying to eat more healthy and even though the cupcakes do contain fruit in them... well, I seriously doubt if that counts towards being "healthy."  So, what to do, what to do; make them for Sunday School snacks!  Between my mom's class of second and third graders, and my class of kindergarten and first graders we have some serious snackers between us!  Hey, I'll do whatever it takes to be able to still bake and if that means sugaring up some kids, well than so be it! 

 

This month's challenge pick was chosen by Sherry from Sherry Starts Cooking - Strawberry Cupcakes.

These are some sweet smelling cupcakes and the recipe made three dozen regular sized cupcakes.  I got by with using one pound of giant strawberries from the grocery store.  It has been too wet around here for the fresh stuff to be out yet so it was with great sadness that I had to rely on the grocers bounty.

For the frosting I used Martha Stewart's Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  I know that the recipe in the book calls for making the Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream, but I ran out of strawberries (to many hands pickin' at the berries) and instead added a couple tablespoons of some chocolate strawberry jam I had put up last year.   It was delcious!! I am surprised I had enough frosting to cover the cupcakes since we did a ton of "test" tasting to be sure it was good enough for the cupcakes!

If you don't have Martha Stewart's book "Cupcakes: 175 inspired ideas for everyon's favorite treat" follow this link here for the frosting recipe.

Enjoy!