New Food Friday #17 ~ Flaming Strawberry Chocolate Cupcakes

On Monday night our dessert was this WONDERFUL Cupcake. It was incredible! I could have eaten them all (thank you Pastor Steve for taking some home with you!). It was wonderful!!!!

Flaming Strawberry Chocolate Cupcakes

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
3/4 cup hot water
3/4 cup heavy cream
3 tbsp canola or other vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract

1 - Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2 - Line muffin tin with cupcake papers and set aside.

3 - Sift together cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Add eggs, water, heavy cream, oil and vanilla. Mix with a hand held mixer until smooth.

4 - Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each half full. Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool before frosting.



Frosting:
2 sticks softened butter
4 cups confectioners' sugar
4 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted

1 - In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, cream together sugar, cocoa and butter; beginning on low speed then increase to high. Beat until fluffy and lightened in color. Transfer mixture to a piping bag fitted with a decorative tip. Frost cupcakes.


Strawberries:
18-24 Strawberries - you'll need as many as you have cupcakes
Vodka, rum, or your choice of liquor 80 proof or higher (over-proof such as 110 will give you a yellow flame)

Hollow the strawberries carefully. If you pierce the side of the strawberry accidentally, start with a new one. Since you'll be setting the liquor aflame, it is important that the strawberry is leak-proof.

Set one strawberry atop each frosted cupcake. Fill strawberries with liquor just before lighting (see tips). If you need to light them all at once, (say, for a party) use a turkey baster to quickly fill all the strawberries and a grill lighter in lieu of matches.

Miranda Mix Ups: I made everything just as it said, for the cupcakes. The Frosting is a different story. I only had 3 cups of icing sugar!! I know heaven forbid right? But yeah. I ended up not using enough butter that was "whippable". I had to heat up the mixture every few times, and eventually add some milk. It was wonderful!!!!

Family Reviews:
Q - ate it all
K - ate it all
Arnold - pretty good. The Icing was really nice.
Miranda - I could have eaten all the icing without putting it on. It was wonderful though!