There’s a gal in my office named Julie, who works remotely from her house. For the last few years said house has been in Salt Lake City, but earlier this year she moved to Northern California. She gets all the department wide emails, as usually they’re work related. But occasionally, they’re birthday related. Sometimes we forget she can see everything, until the “Sounds like fun guys, have a piece of cake for me!” response pops up, and we all feel a little like we’re rubbing it in that she’s not there. Lately the birthday baking responsibilites have fallen to me, and I have a list stashed in my desk with a specific dessert preference for everyone in my department. Everyone except for Julie. Since she lives closer now, she was able to come down for a week and work with the rest of us here in San Diego. We had our annual holiday gathering at her rented beach house, and I managed to ask her what HER favorite celebratory dessert is in a way that actually made sense in the context of our conversation. I’m a very sneaky ninja like that. What she didn’t know is that I was plotting. Julie deserved a birthday celebration that everyone made a big deal over, decorated her desk with confetti and streamers and balloons for, and snuck up on her with a candle burning, and optional singing. Turns out her personal fave is strawberry shortcake, which in December is a tall order. One of the perks of Southern California living is pretty much year round access to shiny, bright red fresh strawberries. Don’t be fooled though – while science may have figured out how to engineer a good LOOKING berry in the dead of winter, but they generally don’t taste like much. Certainly not good enough to be the star of a berry-centric dessert. I picked up a couple of pints on my way home anyway, and set about figuring out how to throw together a strawberry shortcake-esque dessert, that didn’t lean so heavily on the flavor of the star ingredient. I settled on strawberry cupcakes, with whipped cream frosting and a chocolate covered strawberry on top. A quick google search turned up the recipe for Sprinkles strawberry cupcakes, via Martha Stewart. Sounded pretty fail safe. I whipped those up with no major catastrophes, except that somewhere during any baking process, my kitchen starts looking like this:

Makes 1 dozen

2/3 cup whole fresh or frozen strawberries, thawed

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon coarse salt

1/4 cup whole milk, room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 large egg, room temperature

2 large egg whites, room temperature

Sprinkles’ Strawberry Frosting (I skipped this)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with cupcake liners; set aside.

Place strawberries in a small food processor; process until pureed. You should have about 1/3 cup of puree, add a few more strawberries if necessary or save any extra puree for frosting; set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside. In a small bowl, mix together milk, vanilla, and strawberry puree; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter on medium-high speed, until light and fluffy. Gradually add sugar and continue to beat until well combined and fluffy. Reduce the mixer speed to medium and slowly add egg and egg whites until just blended.

With the mixer on low, slowly add half the flour mixture; mix until just blended. Add the milk mixture; mix until just blended. Slowly add remaining flour mixture, scraping down sides of the bowl with a spatula, as necessary, until just blended.

Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups. Transfer muffin tin to oven and bake until tops are just dry to the touch, 22 to 25 minutes. Transfer muffin tin to a wire rack and let cupcakes cool completely in tin before icing.

Whip 2 cups heavy whipping cream with a few drops of red food coloring added, until light and fluffy, and it holds soft peaks. Add powdered sugar to taste while the cream is whipping. (it has a little corn starch in it, which helps stabilize the end product – I like it better than using regular granulated or super fine sugar)

Dip 12 strawberries in your preferred chocolate, and chill until set completely. Add to the top of your cupcakes right before serving.