Strawberries and chocolate - is there any better combination? These little confections begin as a basic chocolate cupcake. I used the very simple and straighforward Creative Loafing recipe. After the little cakes had cooled, I used the wide end of a pastry tip and a small spoon to remove the core of each cupcake. While leafing through the Martha Stewart's cupcake book at a bookstore last weekend, I noticed that she recommends discarding cupcake middles after removing them! I usually just eat them - the middles are soft and delicious, a sweet reward for making complicated cupcakes.
The second step involved combining semisweet chocolate (I use Ghiradelli, yum!), warm cream, and butter to create a smooth chocolate ganache. The ganache is poured into the middle of each cupcake and allowed to cool and thicken slightly. I usually save little cake caps from the middles to place over the filling, but they work just as well without covers - the frosting hides the filling anyway.
For frosting, I decided to make strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream. Swiss meringue buttercream is made using egg whites, sugar, and butter. (I halved the recipe in the above link.) The egg whites and sugar are combined over heat in a bain-marie until smooth. Every recipe I have seen for Swiss meringue buttercream says to test the egg/sugar mixture between your fingers for homogeneity - no matter how clean your fingers, be careful not to get them in the mixture at any time between separating the eggs and the incorporation of the butter. Any oil that may be on your fingers will make it more difficult to whisk the mixture to stiff peaks after heating. Along these lines, any egg yolk that gets in with the whites will also prevent the mixture from getting satisfactorily fluffy. Though it makes for more dishes to wash, I use two extra bowls when separating eggs. I crack one egg at a time and pour the white into one small bowl and the yolk into the other. If the yolk is intact, I transfer the egg white to its final destination. The next egg is cracked in the same way, into the small egg white bowl first, then whites transferred if they have separated well. If any yolk gets into the small egg white bowl, I can discard just that egg without losing the rest of the eggs in the recipe. The yolks and any contaminated whites can be saved for another purpose. After the sugar and egg whites are combined, tested by being dripped into a plate and rubbed between your fingers, and removed from heat, they should be whisked to stiff peaks. Every single time I do this I get scared that the peaks will not form - it takes a while - and just when it appears completely hopeless they finally get frothy! The butter makes the mixture beautiful and shiny. To get the strawberry flavor I was seeking, I pureed nearly a pint of hulled strawberries in the food processor, then folded it into the buttercream a little at a time. If you go slowly enough, the buttercream will let you know when it has had enough - too much puree would threaten the stability of the mixture. I do not strain the strawberry puree before incorporating it into the frosting because I like the natural look provided by the little seeds and tiny strawberry bits. This is the one frosting I simply cannot resist eating right out of the bowl - it is very light and fluffy and not too sweet, with a strong strawberry flavor. I used a #21 tip to pipe the frosting on in three layers for extra height.
I had reserved some strawberries for decoration, so I cut them up and pressed a piece into the top of each cupcake. I considered soaking them in syrup to make them shinier while I crafted the cupcakes, but again I think I prefer the natural look.
Finally, I thinned the remaining chocolate ganache with a small amount of corn syrup and drizzled it over each cupcake using a #4 tip.
My favorite part? The adorable cupcake boxes I found at Michael's. I made this batch of cupcakes to use as thank-you gifts, and the little boxes for four worked perfectly!
