Strawberry Cupcake

I was craving for cinnamon rolls last night and was so determined to make them today. Bad luck, I lack some ingredients and I don't even have parchment paper. Arg!

I scanned the fridge for other staples I could bake and found these:I knew I had a recipe of Strawberry Daiquiri Cupcakes from a cupcake baking class I took last year from a famous baking school in Manila. I haven't even tried it so I decided that today is the right time to judge the recipe I posted below.

STRAWBERRY DAIQUIRI CUPCAKES

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups butter, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 pieces eggs
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup milk (the recipe says Magnolia Fresh Milk)
1 cup fresh strawberries, chopped
1/4 cup Bacardi rum or any light rum

BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons strawberry puree
1 tablespoon lemon juice
food color

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F or 165 degrees C.
Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and egg one at a time beating well after each addition.
Sift flour and baking powder together.
Add flour mixture in 3 stages alternating with the milk.
Fold in fresh strawberries.
Fill each cupcake pan about 2/3 full. Bake for 15-20 minutes.
Brush warm cupcakes with rum. Cool on wire racks.

To make the frosting:

Cream butter until light and fluffy. Add sifted sugar. Add strawberry puree, rum and lemon juice. Add red food color.Frost cupcakes and garnish with fresh strawberries, mint leaves and red sugar.
My notes:

I made just half the recipe. Yielded 14 2-oz cupcakes.

I omitted the rum as I don't have any and just replaced it with milk.

The only milk I had was full cream milk. Don't ask me what's the difference between a fresh milk and full cream milk's content, I don't know. If somebody has answers I need them right away.

Thinking that I won't frost the cupcakes, I doubled the fresh strawberries which wasn't a very good idea. And I should have chopped the strawberries smaller. I just quartered them. The strawberries inside the cupcakes had softened and it could have been better if they were not in big chunks. My Personal & Unbiased Review:

The cake is light and fluffy but it's a bit dry. (I ate a couple tonight and realized that it's not dry at all. Perhaps I thought it's dry because I didn't have it completely cooled when I tasted it this morning). The fresh strawberries complemented the overall taste.

Not too sweet. The sour hint of the berries provided a good balance. Probably it could have tasted better if I used rum.

With frosting, this cupcake would be good enough to serve your guest. Probably it would taste better if I used rum.

Still, my quest for better tasting strawberry cupcakes has just begun.