The Best Frosting Ever! Really, ever!

I have been buying the strawberries two pounds at a time and I think in the last week, Avalon and I have managed to eat 6 pounds of them. However the last quarter pound of the strawberries starts getting quite ripe and since I'm not one who likes to waste I had to find a way to use them up.

And since Avalon and have been couped up due to all this rain, I asked her what she wanted to make and not surprising at all, she said, "Cupcakes!" The girl always says cupcakes but then never eats them.

So I found several recipes out there and landed on this one, one of the few that had real strawberries in it. (Kind of annoyed me that so many recipes had me using strawberry flavored cake mix, strawberry gelatin, etc)

However, the star in this recipe is the frosting. This is the best. frosting. ever. Really! In fact, I made the cupcakes followed by the frosting. But once I tasted the frosting I didn't give the cupcakes a second thought. I used the leftover frosting and stuffed some more fresh strawberries with it for dinner. Let it be known, I did finally try the cupcake and it was good but the frosting definitely makes this recipe.

So without further ado, here is the recipe:

2 cups cake flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoons salt

1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

3 eggs, room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/4 cups whole milk (I used skim)

1/3 cup pureed fresh strawberries

( I know most recipes have you combine the dry ingredients and then the wet and then combine. but I usually cream the butter and sugar, add eggs, and then dump all the dry in together.

Cook at 350 for 20ish minutes. Let cool

For frosting:

Cream 2 sticks of butter till light and fluffy. Add 3.5 cups of powdered sugar and 1 tsp vanilla. Beat until well combined. Then add 6 tablespoons of strawberry puree. Then let the mixer run for two to three minutes to make the lightest fluffiest frosting ever! Decorate cupcakes with frosting. Use leftover frosting on everything!