Chocolate Cupcakes with Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Swiss Meringue Buttercream (or SMBC, as it’s called among the more srs bsns type) is legitimately scary. Why? I’ll… explain later. While searching for a strawberry frosting without icing sugar, I found this one which is originally from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes. At first I was like YEAY PRETTY and then I was like OH WAIT because I remembered all the things I’ve read about SMBC. And thus I present to you,
“SMBC; How Much Do You Scare Me, Let Me Count The Ways.“

1) A recipe I had previously read made it seem like this was the most temperamental frosting ever. Like if even a gram of egg white was off (Gram! I’m supposed to weigh my egg whites? Weigh them?!) then the frosting would probably be ruined and I would have failed as a human being.
2) I seriously read a user comment somewhere where she spent an hour trying to beat the frosting back into stiffness after adding the butter. AN HOUR. I’m using a hand mixer okay, I ain’t got an hour!
3) Way too many comments about this frosting ending up soupy for my liking
4) The last time I made a frosting with eggs in it, it tasted like EGGS.

But I really, really wanted to make a frosting with strawberries in them that didn’t use icing sugar so I decided to be fearless for once and try it.

And it turned out so freaking amazing. Exception to the rule, what what!

 

Let’s start with the cupcakes. No pictures because the ones at the main source would have pawned mine.

 

The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever. from Pioneer Woman
*adapted to make 30 cupcakes*
3 cups Flour
3 cups Sugar
½ tp Salt
6 tbsp (heaping) Cocoa
3 sticks Butter
1½ cup Boiling Water
¾ cup Buttermilk
3 whole Beaten Eggs
1½ tsp Baking Soda
1½ tsp Vanilla

-Preheat the oven to 350˚f/175˚c
-In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, and salt.
-In a saucepan, melt butter.
-Add cocoa. Stir together.
-Add boiling water, allow mixture to boil for 30 seconds, then turn off heat.
-Pour over flour mixture, and stir lightly to cool.
-Mix the buttermilk , beaten eggs, baking soda, and vanilla.
-Stir buttermilk mixture into butter/chocolate mixture.
-Divide batter into cupcake liners about 2/3 full
-Bake for 20-25 minutes.
-Let cool fully before frosting

 

And now for the magical frosting!

 

Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes, as seen here
1½ cup fresh strawberries (8 oz.), rinsed, hulled and coarsely chopped
4 large egg whites
1¼ cup sugar
1½ cup (3 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons, at room temperature

 

-Puree the strawberries in your food processor until completely smooth.

-Add the egg whites and sugar to the bowl of your stand mixer (or any heatproof bowl) and set it over a pan of simmering water. Heat, whisking constantly, until the sugar has dissolved – you can test with your fingertips, if the mixture feels grainy, it’s not ready yet.

-Attach the bowl to your stand mixer (or transfer the mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer if you used a separate bowl) fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form and the mixture has cooled to room temperature, about 10 minutes. (The bowl will be cool to the touch.)

-Reduce the mixer to medium-low speed and add the butter, 2 tablespoons at a time. Let each addition incorporate before adding the next. (The frosting may look soupy or curdled once you add the butter – just keep beating and it will come together.)

– Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, then add the strawberry puree to the bowl.

– Beat until combined (the mixture will probably look curdled again when you add the strawberries, keep beating!)

-Pipe the buttercream onto the cupcakes (I used a 1M tip), and garnish with extra strawberries, if desired.

 

These cupcakes were mostly for my mom’s colleagues so here they are…

… packed nicely in a wannabe cupcake carrier.

 

Of course I kept some for myself! Mostly for photography reasons, obviously. Yeah. For photos.

Look at those little strawberry bits in the frosting! Such details make me so happy.

 

I won’t go into details how this is the easiest and best chocolate cake/cupcake recipe…

…because I’ve already done so. I will say that it has the texture of a really great, moist pound cake.

 

Unlike that one time when I made cupcakes that looked pretty but tasted blah, this one delivered!

I loved how the strawberry taste was subtle yet “effective”. Everyone, please don’t be like me and almost miss out on a great frosting because of cowardice skepticism because well, at the very worst you get frosting soup and at the very best you get something like this. Fair game, no?