Sprinkles Cupcakes for Father's Day

Is it just me or is anyone else starting to feel like they're on dessert overload? Lately I've been feeling a little sick of sweets, but not the baking part so that makes it really difficult to make something new when the desserts are piling up. That's why I love getting together with family because it gives me an excuse to bake, and a full recipe too (no annoying egg splitting or creaming 3 tbsps of butter!). Oh.. and catching up is fun too. Since it's the summer and strawberries are everywhere, I finally decided to give Sprinkle's strawberry cupcakes a try. It seemed like the perfect summer dessert for Father's Day. My family seems to be on a health kick nowadays with everyone splitting a cookie or taking out knives to cut a cupcake in half. I thought I would make it easier on them by making mini cupcakes and test out my new mini silicone baking cups. I never thought I would use silicone just because I have this weird belief that whatever is baking in them will not cook. I don't know why.. maybe it's because the cups don't feel hot like metal does. The batter was delicious and tasted like strawberry icecream! I'm not usually a batter licker because the raw flour grosses me out, but I couldn't help dipping my fingers one too many times. Too bad I didn't love it when they were baked. They weren't horrible, but I didn't love the texture. I even made regular sized cupcakes in a metal pan because I didn't want to judge a recipe I've never tried before baked at 1/4th of its original size. I think I'm going to try adding strawberry puree to a butter cake recipe next time, but I have the feeling it's not as easy as replacing some of the milk with strawberry. Fruits do weird things to batter.