The Dainty Chef: Gone Fishin'? (Strawberry Buttercream Icing)

So much for having time to blog eh?
Well, that is about to change. Recently, my life has undergone some changes, which has allowed for a little more time in my day. Thank goodness!
This week at school is mid-terms so obviously, I am willing to do anything to procrastinate the inevitable studying that will plague my life once I give in to the demand. However, until then, I have found a few minutes to catch up and do one of my favorite things--talk about cooking/baking!
Boy, have I missed this. I have a TON that I want to blog about--for example, all the things I have been learning at school, including some amazing and delicious recipes (including but not limited to: cheesecake, poached pears, and pumpkin-cranberry muffins filled with cream cheese)
Before I move on, you might want to wipe that drool from your chin.
Hopefully this won't disappoint you too much, but I'm not blogging any of those things today. BUT don't throw your computer in rage just yet, they will be posted very shortly! Today, however, I have a different kind of treat for you.
About a month ago, it was my father-in-law's birthday and I had the pleasure of surprising him with a cake so I thought I would share that, along with a delicious home-made strawberry buttercream frosting recipe. I really wanted to experiment and try to create my own strawberry flavour and not to brag, but this is just delicious.
The cake I made was a four layer chocolate cake with strawberry buttercream filling in two layers and chocolate gananche in the middle layer. I should warn you first though, my in-laws, though sweet as ever, they're a little weird and get this intense joy from fishing. Crazy, I know. Luckily, I can look past this little issue. :P With this cake, I tried to be a good sport and get a little creative with my fondant and gum-paste work. Not to mention, I experimented with home-made fondant because I know some people really don't like the taste and I wanted to experiment and test the texture/taste.
Home-made fondant, aka marshmallow fondant, is VERY cheap, EXTREMELY sticky and INCREDIBLY easy. I do have a theory that you either like fondant or you don't, however, coming from someone who likes some fondants, I really enjoyed the taste of the marshmallow fondant.
I'm not going to post that recipe because they are really easy to find online, especially on pinterest and they are all pretty much the same, but I will post the link I used here. (Note: Crisco will be your best-friend!) Here's a little preview of the process you have to look forward to:

Melted marshmallows with water

Oops, how'd this get in here?

Mixing icing sugar with melted marshmallows

Almost ready!

All in all, I would definitely make marshmallow fondant again. It is a lot cheaper, I thought it tasted better and I also found it a little easier to work with (however, I haven't worked with really expensive fondant yet)

Thankfully for my husband and I, I had a little extra chocolate cake batter left over so I baked us up some cupcakes. Then I set to work on the icing. I started out with just regular buttercream and just flavoured it myself. I had a bunch of things laying around and just kind of threw this together quickly. The flavour turned out really great. It had a strong strawberry flavour that wasn't TOO sweet.

Strawberry Buttercream Icing
1 Cup of butter
4-6 Cups of Icing Sugar
1-2 Tsp heavy cream (or milk)
1/4 cup pureed strawberries
1-2 Tbsp Strawberry Jam
1-2 Tsp Strawberry flavoured Jello Powder

1. Cream the butter until really soft, with no lumps in the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment.
2. Add about 2 Cups of the icing sugar. (slowly-you don't want sugar flying everywhere!) You want the consistency to be pretty wet in order to completely emulsify the strawberry flavour.
3. Add the pureed strawberries, jam, jello powder and 1 tsp of the cream. Mix.
4. Add the remaining Icing sugar until the icing is the consistency that you are looking for. If you are looking for a stiffer icing, add more. If you want something a little more runny and soft, add the extra tsp of cream.

When I made this, I should have added a litte more icing sugar than I did because it was a litte too "runny" for my liking. This icing has a lot of "wet" ingredients so it needs more icing sugar than some other recipes. I encourage you to play around the the measurements until you find the right consistency for you. I really enjoyed the flavour though. I think the jello powder added a different kind of "sweetness" that was a really nice balance with the traditional buttercream flavour.

After I made the icing, I topped the cupcakes with a layer of gananche and then frosted on some strawberry frosting. It was like a chocolate covered strawberry in cake form. Honestly, so good. Chocolate and strawberry is one of my favorite combinations. I've heard that some people hate fruit and chocolate together (WHAT?!) because of the clashing textures but this icing combination is the best of both worlds: smooth and silky texture with great flavours.