Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes - and new Price and sales lists

May is here, and with it, we have some new monthly specials, as well as a new Summer Price list. Check out the links and contact me to let me know what you want to order.

I know that Summer is "officially" still 7 weeks away. But I live in AZ, and we hit triple digit weather mid-April. So it really does feel like summer here. And in honor of the summer season, I decided to make some strawberry lemonade... cupcakes, that is. :-)

I was having a birthday luncheon for a friend and wanted to do something a little special for the dessert. I didn't get exact measurements of everything as I went, so this is meant more as a recipe inspiration of how to use your FD fruit, rather than an exact recipe. But I will give you some ball park amounts as I walk you through the steps.

Part One - The Batter

• Prepare a lemon cake mix of your choice, according to the box directions. (Consider using THRIVE Powdered Eggs for salmonella-risk-free beater licking enjoyment!)
• Punch up the lemon flavor by adding 1-2 tsp of lemon juice (according to your preference)
• If you want extra moist cake, add 1/4 cup of either sour cream, lemon pudding, or lemon yogurt
• Once the batter is blended, take 1/2-3/4 cup of THRIVE FD Strawberries (or more if you want) and dump them in straight from the can. Mix well, until all the berries are evenly dispersed. Let them sit in the batter to soak up some moisture while you preheat the oven (to whatever the cake mix calls for) and move on to the frosting. 

Part Two - The Frosting

• Soften 1 stick (1/2 cup) of butter or margarine.
• Much like potato chips or cereal, FD fruits, such as the Strawberries, experience some breakage during processing and transportation. As such, you get some crumbs or powder at the bottom of the can. I LOVE the powder in the FD fruits, and this is the perfect use for it. I think I used anywhere from 2-4 Tbsp of the strawberry powder from the bottom of the can. 
• Combine the strawberry powder with 4 cups of powdered sugar.  I was using powdered sugar from an old #10 inherited from my Grandma. It wasn't THRIVE powdered sugar, and when I opened it, it was clumped and hard as a rock. So I had to run it through the blender, and I just blended the strawberry powder with it. But assuming you have soft powdered sugar, you should be able to blend yours nicely with just a fork. If you don't have a lot of strawberry powder in your can, you can probably just stick 1/4 cup strawberries and 4 cups powdered sugar in the blender and blend it all together until you have a pink powder.
• Add the strawberry powdered sugar to the softened butter a cup or so at a time as you beat it with the electric mixer. (You may want less or more sugar depending on the consistency you prefer). 
• Add 1/2 - 1 tsp lemon juice to frosting according to preference. 

Part Three - Baking and Decorating

• Pour your batter into your cupcake liners, and bake according to the directions on your cake mix box. Let them cool completely before frosting. 
• Frost liberally. I had enough frosting for 2 dozen cupcakes. I went too light on the frosting for the first few, and wound up with a lot left over, and had to go back and add some to some already decorated cupcakes. So learn from my mistake and don't skimp on the frosting. You can always make more frosting later if you need to, but the frosting is the best part and gives enough strawberry flavor to balance out the lemon flavor of the cake. 
• Garnish with your choice of fresh or FD Strawberry pieces, and some sort of lemon candy (I used lemon heads here, but gummy, sugar-covered lemon slices or  lemon Starbursts would work well too). 
• Serve and enjoy!