Eggless Strawberry cupcakes

Saturday afternoon at home... My little girl refusing to take her nap. That is a regular scenario on weekends. She postpones her naptime as much as possible and finally she gets so cranky and heavy-eyed, that she falls asleep at 8PM without having had dinner :). So I always try to put her to sleep before 4PM atleast. That way she gets some shut-eye and can start her non-stop chatter all the way through dinner and bed time!

When I try to put her to sleep, we both lie down singing rhymes, telling stories and talking in general about her school, her friends etc. Sometimes out the blue she would suddenly tell me "I want cake" or "I want lollipop". I have standard replies to most of these demands and I can postpone fulfilling these demands for a while. But sometimes she is persistent. Then I have to promise to have the cake ready when she wakes up from the nap. Such was a demand one Saturday afternoon, that I had to bake a cake to offer the little girl when she wakes up from her nap.

I had strawberries in the fridge and I had to use them up. I was planning on making another jar of strawberry jam. But I finally decided to bake some strawberry cupcakes. I borrowed the recipe from Anshruti's blog.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup - plain flour
1 1/2  tsp - baking powder
1 tsp  - baking soda

1 cup - milk powder (I used sweetened milk powder. I increased the quantity from 3/4 cup to 1 cup, since I used sweetened milk powder, I then reduced the sugar quantity)

1/4 cup - packed powdered sugar or fine sugar (I reduced the sugar from the original 3/4 cup, as I used sweetened milk powder)
1/2 cup - butter
250 g - strawberries, sliced
1 cup - milk
1 tsp - vanilla extract
A few drops of lemon juice plus 2 tsp sugar for the strawberries
 

Method:

Line the tin with cupcake liners.

Clean and slice the strawberries. Mix in the lemon juice and the sugar and keep aside for about 15 minutes to half an hour.
This helps to bring out the flavour of the strawberries.

Sieve the flour, baking powder and baking soda.

 

In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and the vanilla with a hand blender or with a wire whisk, about 2 to 3 minutes.
Mix in the sugar and the milk powder and beat until soft. Stir in half the flour, add half the milk and beat until soft, for about 2 minutes.
Put in the remaining flour and milk and beat again until soft for 2 minutes.
Mix in the strawberries with their juices.
Pour the batter into cup cake liners and bake at (160C/325F/Gas Mark 3) for 25 to 30 minutes or till done (until a skewer comes clean).

Verdict: This cake was a great hit. It was super fluffy and soft. This is one of the best Eggless recipes that I have tried. So did my little girl love it or not. Well it turns out that her desire to eat a cake had died down post her nap. But we sure did savor the cake :)