Cupcake Combo

Strawberry & Cardamom—why hadn’t I thought of it before? CHOW’s latest email had a recipe for this flavor combo in a cupcake, and I quickly filed it in my recipe folder. Then my friend Jen A forwarded me the same exact email, saying if I came to visit her on Sunday, we might just have to bake these! Yeah, that worked. ;) I would have come anyway, but cupcakes never hurt!

We made the batter step by step, and even accidentally switched up the eggs (adding the whole eggs before the single egg whites), but we kept going forward. Soldier on, bakers!

I’m glad the CHOW folks warned us the batter would look curdled, and not to worry, because it looked really curdled.

While we ate a delicious dinner (Jen’s BF Tom made us a feast of grilled salmon, sinful scalloped potatoes, chicken sausage, and a spinach salad), the cupcakes baked to a golden perfection.

We deviated from the CHOW recipe here--we skipped the filling and made our own frosting, riffing off a cream cheese frosting recipe Jen found. The secret ingredient in this batch? All-natural strawberry extract.

Jen had picked it up on a whim and we figured this was the perfect recipe to take it for a test drive. It SMELLED like a field full of fresh, ripe strawberries. Wowza.

I had some Trader Joe’s strawberries, which I sliced nicely and used to top the cupcakes. We also paired the cupcakes with some white port (have you had white port??? You must try it—light, delicious, and yes, sweet) and it was dessert perfection. Dreamy sigh.

Strawberry & Cardamom--a new favorite flavor combo! I'll have to try this in smoothies, cocktails and more. I'm learning to savor this summer!

Get the Chowhound recipe for these cupcakes (and more summer treats) by clicking THIS LINK!

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