Ice Cream Cupcakery

It has been a while since I have written anything on here. The last few weeks have been pretty busy. The good news is I have been working a lot and have managed to check several things off that crazy long summer To-Do-List. However, yesterday I set aside some time to do something I REALLY enjoy … Cook. Well this time it was actually baking, but really doing anything in the kitchen is awesome in my book.

 We had some friends over and I was in charge of doing a desert. I decided that since I had time, I wasn’t going to settle for a pan of brownies or strawberries over angel food cake. Instead I made ice cream stuffed cupcakes with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Diet friendly? Maybe not. But they turned out both really yummy and really cute. See below for the cupcake progression.

I started with some French Vanilla cake mix. (No- I didn’t do this part from scratch). Then I have this really cool cupcake pan that leaves holes in the middle of each cupcake when they are baked so you can add filling of any sort.

I decided if I was going go to bake town, I was going to go all out. Filling or frosting was just too boring. So instead I tossed a bunch of ice cream in my kitchen aid and whipped it smooth. I then stuffed my cookie gun with the smooth strawberry ice cream and filled each cupcake center and covered the top the same way frosting would. Immediately the cupcakes were thrown into the freezer so the ice cream could harden up again. While they were getting cold, I cut up fresh strawberries and added a dash of sugar so they would be sweet and juicy.

After dinner it was time to finish building the rest of the strawberry goodness. I pulled the frozen cupcakes out of the freezer and put a light layer of strawberry jam on each one. Then spooned on some of the fresh strawberries and finished it off with whipped cream and a fresh berry on top. Voilà! Desert was made!
 

Since it is summertime and I’m SUPPOSED to have more free time I’d like to do some more cooking and baking. If you have any great recipes please send them my way.

Happy 4^th of July Everyone!