I Should Have Known Better

I am no stranger to the wonderful world of baking, which is why I should have known better when I attempted to satisfy a recent craving of mine by whipping up some from-scratch strawberry cupcakes with Nutella frosting. I've been salivating over the idea of these for awhile now. Keep in mind, I've never actually seen nor experienced such a heavenly mix, not outside of my dreams, that is. For help and inspiration, I turned to my good friend, Google, where I discovered two promising looking recipes (in other words, the first ones I happened to stumble upon).

The strawberry cupcake recipe I chose to use seemed promising. For one, it was from the Martha Stewart website, and from what I've heard, that woman knows her way around a kitchen. And secondly, it used strawberry puree, instead of flavored gelatin, which was a plus because I happened to have some strawberries on hand that were still good, but were looking a little less than appetizing. Here is the recipe. Please take a moment to scope it out so we're all on the same page.

Now, right away I was a tad perplexed by the inclusion of baking powder, being more familiar with recipes calling for baking soda, but hey, who was I to disagree with the Homemaker Queen? So I made my from-scratch cupcakes, merrily popped them in the oven and took them out five minutes less than the recommend time. They weren't pretty. I didn't expect them to be, knowing that fruit tends to brown when it's baked and that there wouldn't be even the slightest hint of the Easter egg pink color we've all come to associate with strawberry flavored foods. But still, they seemed a little off...                 

Whatever. Letting the cupcakes cool, I proceeded to wash the dishes and whip up some Nutella Cream Cheese frosting that I found at the blog, Tartelette. This frosting looked easy enough to make, and after a quick trip to the grocery store to pick up some confectioner's sugar, I had everything on hand. I had no hesitations with this recipe. Unfortunately, it seems that despite the fact that I used my lovely new Kitchenaid to "whisk" the frosting together, and despite the fact that my ingredients had been sitting out since I started the cupcakes and the entire time I was at the grocery store, leading me to believe they were definitely "at room temperature", I still ended up with lumps in my frosting. And since I didn't want to mess around with piping bags and tips, I generously snipped off the corner of a Ziplock and went to town.

And this is what I ended up with:

Uh... yup! That's right folks! Dog shit cupcakes! 

Tartelette insisted that the frosting recipe was enough to frost 12 cupcakes, but apparently she doesn't frost with the same heavy hand I do (or the same pregnancy cravings), so I ended up with some pretty skimpily frosted cupcakes towards the end.

But the real question is, how did they taste?

I'm going to be honest here, they weren't good. The frosting was to die for, but the cupcakes tasted like... wait for it... baking powder. They were gross. There was nothing cupcakey about them. They lacked sweetness, and most importantly, they lacked the real strawberry flavor I was looking for.

Needless to say, I think I'll be sticking with eating strawberries slathered in Nutella instead.