I had a great birthday! Having your birthday (practically) on a weekend is great because it lasts all weekend. Friday Simon and I went to our friends’ house where we were treated to (delicious) clementine cupcakes, and I got the nicest gift from some of my friends.
I was, and still am, so touched! Making friends is hard to do, and I’m so glad that I have found a great group at this duty station.
After that, Simon and I came home to an Edible Arrangement from my in-laws, which we shared,
balloon included.
Saturday my family came to visit! My parents as well as both of my brothers were able to come. We went out to dinner, played some games, and had more cupcakes. I made these, I had strawberry frosting on the brain.
This recipe came from Bittersweet, and Hannah always makes amazing stuff. When my search for vegan strawberry frosting pulled up a post from her site, I knew it was meant to be.
This was simple, but not fast. The strawberry puree had to be cooked down, then chilled, then cooked with cornstarch, and chilled again. Then whipped with (vegan) butter, and sugar. Not powdered sugar, regular granulated sugar. That was easily the most interesting and appealing part of this recipe. A tsp of powdered sugar does have fewer calories (~10cal) than a tsp of granulated sugar (~15cal). But when you consider that most frosting recipes call for around 2 cups of powdered sugar per 1/2 cup of butter, you can see where the mere 1/2 cup of sugar was appealing here.
But that isn’t why I made this frosting, in fact, I had to add a little bit of powdered sugar at the end (just a bit, about 1/4 cup). It was my birthday, not a time to be cutting calories. I just made these because they looked plain delicious.
They totally were. There was so much real strawberry flavor, it was well worth the time invested. The cupcakes were just a plain vanilla cake, it was really all about the frosting here! A tiny tip for anyone who might be making this, when you add the puree to the creamed butter and sugar, mine almost looked like it broke. It looked gloppy and just plain gross. Just put your mixer up to a really high speed and keep on going, it’ll come together. Persistence here, pays off big time.
I hope everyone else had a fantastic weekend. For some reason I really feel like I stepped away from reality for a few days, and even though my regular routine wasn’t interrupted, I’m having a hard time getting back into it! We have a fun and busy week planned though, so I had better snap back to normal soon, or things are going to get crazy around here.
Oats and Beans and Baby Grow 