Homedessert Strawberry-Filled Rose Water Cupcakes

Strawberry-Filled Rose Water Cupcakes

Comments : 4 Posted in : dessert, food, intermediate, recipe, snack on by : Jeanette Rueb Tags: , , , , , ,

I’ve always loved baking, but for all my years of practice, I’ve never really gotten adventurous with it. I recently came into ownership of a cupcake holer, and I figured I might as well give it a try; worst-case scenario, I ruin a batch of cupcakes.

Then I thought about it a bit more and decided to go big or go home.

I had tried rose water cookies back in the fall, and they were delicious. A few weeks ago, I finally found a bottle of rose water in a local grocery store’s international section, and I decided to give it a try. For the filling: the boyfriend had come back from the store with some pretty sad-looking strawberries. In a vain attempt to salvage the dozen or so that weren’t on death’s door, I decided to make them into a reduction and hope for the best.

All in all, the adventure turned out pretty well. The final outcome was delicious, and my several taste-testers all gave them a big thumbs up. I overworked the cupcake batter a bit, so they didn’t rise as high as I would have liked them. As I get more used to the electric hand mixer I’m sure that’ll happen less, and I tweaked the written version of the recipe to hopefully avoid that problem for all of you.

I hope you enjoy these strawberry-filled rose water cupcakes as much as my sample group and I did! The end result is a vanilla cupcake with slight floral notes, filled with basically homemade jam, and topped with a delicately floral frosting and strawberry bits.

(P.S.: Buttercream is stupidly easy to make. Be warned.)

Note: I was in a hurry, so I didn’t do this, but I strongly suggest taking the cupcakes OUT of the pan before frosting them…

Ingredients

Rose Water Cupcakes:
1/2 cup salted butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp rose water
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup milk

Strawberry Filling:
1 cup water
2 1/2 cups cut strawberries (1/2 inch pieces)
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons corn starch

Buttercream Frosting:
1 cup salted butter, softened
3 cups confectioner’s sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp rose water
2 drops red food coloring
1/4 cup diced strawberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line two standard muffin pans with cupcake cups.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and the sugar. Once those are combined, add in the eggs one at a time. Once those are mixed in , add the rose water and vanilla extract and beat until the mixture is light and fluffy. In a smaller bowl, sift the flour and the baking powder. Add them to the butter mixture gradually, alternating with the milk. Mix everything together by hand until it is just combined.

Bake the cupcakes for 12-15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Set them aside and let them cool.

In a small saucepan, combine the strawberries, sugar, corn starch, and water. Bring the contents of the pan to a boil for 2-3 minutes before turning the heat down to a simmer, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. Allow the reduction to simmer on low until it is thick and syrupy, continuing to stir occasionally. Once the desired consistency is reached, turn off the heat and let the reduction cool to room temperature. If you’d like, you can reduce the strawberries while you are making the batter for the cupcakes. It should be ready to cool by the time the cupcakes go in the oven.

If you don’t want to make a reduction, you can always use jam.

Once the cupcakes have cooled, use either a cupcake holer or a knife to cut out the centers of the cupcakes, reserving the “caps” or “plugs” for later. Take a plastic sandwich bag and place it into a drinking glass so that one of the bottom corners points downward. This will act as a makeshift piping bag for the filling. Pour the completely cooled filling into the bag and twist the top to seal it. Cut the corner off of the bag and fill each of the cupcakes with the strawberry reduction. Once the cupcakes are filled, place the caps back on over the filling.

For the buttercream frosting, cream together the butter and confectioner’s sugar until blended. Add in the vanilla extract and rose water, and beat with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. If desired, you can add food coloring. Once you’ve colored the frosting (if you choose to do so), make up another piping bag and pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes, starting at the outside of the cupcake and working your way inward and upward to form a nice swirl. Sprinkle the diced strawberries on top as a garnish. Grab yourself a glass of milk or a light tea and mangia!

To store, place the cupcakes in the fridge. You can store them here for a few days. To re-soften the frosting, either let the cupcakes you wish to eat sit on the counter for about 20 minutes, or use the butter softening trick:
boil some water on the stove and pour it into a glass. Let the glass sit with the water for a minute or two before pouring the water out (or into a mug to make some tea) and placing the cup over the cupcake for 1-2 minutes. The heat from the glass will soften the butter in the frosting without melting it like a microwave would.

4s COMMENTS

4 thoughts

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: