Ahh, the sweet, juicy strawberries. A beloved fruit that signifies Spring time, and the endless possibilities in my culinary adventure. The lovely aroma always puts a big smile on my face. I’ve been picking up baskets of local grown extra sweet strawberries at the farmers market every weekend. Besides eating these sugary goodness “straight up”, one of my favorite way to serve them is to fill them with mascarpone whipped cream. A simple yet decadent recipe I saw from JoyofBaking.com. Very pretty presentation. If you choose to, simply serve the cream on the side instead of filling the strawberries, as a matter of fact, it’s a perfect compliment to any mixtures of berries.

But, today I was in the mood for cake, a cake that’s filled with swirls of actual strawberries, none of that strawberry extract and drops of red dye nonsense. I used Sprinkles Cupcake’s Strawberry Cupcake recipe, baked in a mini muffin/cupcake mold, and did a simple drizzle of dark chocolate and some sprinkles of silver sanding sugar on top. It was like eating cake AND chocolate dipped strawberries, two birds with one stone!

Some modifications:

• I used 1 cup flour and 1/2 cup of almond meal
• Used 3/4 cups of sugar instead of 1 cup
• Used 2% milk instead of whole milk

Then I washed them down with some good old fashion strawberry milk. Nostalgic, no?
Z

Strawberry Milk:
1/3 cup strawberry puree, (made from 2/3 cups of strawberry)
8-10 oz of milk.
sugar to taste

Blend them together and you’ve got yourself a big tall glass of delightful and foamy treat!

You can strain it, but I’m medium pulp OJ and chunky peanut butter kinda girl.

By the way, Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms and the Moms-to-be out there!