Strawberry Stuffed Cupcakes

After a visit to Paul's Pastries this past weekend, and having only a bite of my friend's cupcake....  They lingered on in my mind...  I just knew I would have to come up with something comparable... a basic white cupcake filled with jelly... but th e icing.... ooooh the icing... i was whipped creamy, lighter than air... not too sweet, pure goodness...

If I had a white or yellow box cake mix.... well, I'm not going to lie... I would have used that... but I did not... I came up with  this recipe Sugar Cookie Cupcakes

so, take the easy route with a box... or try my amazing recipe... either way your friends and family will love you... Promise :)

Bake cupcakes, and cool

You will need the following for the filling and icing... (for 24 cupcakes)

2 cups heavy whipping cream

2/3 cup sugar

strawberry extract

plus strawberry jam or preserves for filling

With a paring knife core a small circle in the top of each cupcake... remove the cone add a teaspoon of jam, cut off the "point" portion of your cupcake cone.. then place the cupcake piece back on top.

You can make this ahead and store at this point if needed...

For the Whipped Cream Icing.... with whisk or mixer beat cream until soft peaks begin to form.... then add sugar and either extract or jam, or puree... (this is best done the day of serving, and must be stored in the fridge or it will collapse on ya)

now... it has been years since i have worked with heavy cream... and let me tell you.... I whipped it a little too much.... and it began to seperate... I thought oh no... what did I do wrong here?  let me mix some more.... well low and behold I had done whipped my cream into butter!

batch # 2 then followed... this time I was sure to not over beat... keep it cold and pop it in the fridge a while to make sure it did not collapse on me....

pipe the icing onto your cupcakes.... for a pretty effect use a 1M tip and garnish with a strawberry or 1/2 of one....

I was short on my icing due to the butter incident so I whipped up a strawberry buttercream for my remaining 12 cupcakes...  Wilton has an easy buttercream recipe here that I have used for years... for 12 cupcakes you only need 1/2 the recipe... and I substituted the vanilla extract for strawberry extract which also gives you the pink color :)