Fresh Strawberry Cupcakes

 I felt like I needed a break from the dreary winter weather recently, and with strawberries on special at the local Coles, why not use them for some summery cupcakes?
These are beautiful moist vanilla cupcakes, studded throughout with fresh strawberries.
And what better to top them with than strawberry whipped cream?

 This cream is super easy to make, it's simply a case of whipping a cup of cream, and adding some sugar to sweeten it up. Then grab your food processor (I have a tupperware happy chopper that I use!) to mush up half a punnet or so of strawberries. Mix it all together and you have a bowl of AWESOMENESS that you will want to polish off with a spoon before your cupcakes have cooled!

Next time you need to be reminded of warmer weather, definitely make these!

Fresh Strawberry Cupcakes
Ingredients
125g butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
1/3 cup milk
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups chopped fresh strawberries

Method
- Preheat oven to 180 celcius, line cupcake pan with liners
- Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy
- Add eggs and vanilla until well combined
- Whisk flour, baking powder and salt together in a seperate bowl
- Add flour mixture into the butter mix in 3 batches, alternating with the milk.
- Fold in strawberries

Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full, bake for 15-20 minutes

Strawberry Whipped Cream
Ingredients
1 cup of thickened cream
1/3 cup of sugar
4 tablespoons of mushed up strawberries (roughly chop a handful of strawberries and then blend until mushy - I use a tupperware happy chopper!)

Method
- Whip the cream with a handheld mixer/stand mixer until it resembles whipped cream
- Mix in the sugar until dissolved
- Mix in the strawberries until just combined

Malteser Cupcakes

My Mr's boss is going on holiday, and her last day is tomorrow. Being the nice guy that he is, he asked me to make her some cupcakes as a farewell present. Gives me something to do while I'm on leave from work and feeling the grip of boredom!

His boss requested something Malteser related. Who doesn't love Maltesers?!

I tried putting Maltesers in the cupcakes themselves before baking first. This wasn't too successful, and to be honest I didn't think it would be. Instead I opted to use a well tested chocolate cupcake recipe and a vanilla malt butter cream frosting.

The butter cream is easy to put together and super malty. This is easily rectified by changing the amount of malt to taste. I recommend you add it one tablespoon at a time and make sure you do lots of taste testing!!

All ready to go to work with hubby tomorrow. Hope the boss likes them!

 Malteser Cupcakes
The Chocolate Cupcakes - from this post (obviously minus the oreos!)

The Frosting: Vanilla Malt Buttercream
Ingredients
250g butter, softened
2.5 cups icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons malt powder, or alter to taste (I use Nestle)

Method
- Cream butter and sugar together using a hand held mixer/stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment. Start on low until the icing sugar is incorporated and then mix on high for 3 minutes. Will be very fluffy.
- Add vanilla and malt and beat again for another minute.

Top cupcakes with a Malteser and enjoy!