Strawberry Smoothie Mini Cakes

     Hey, people! This is my first post on the C-bus Digest.  I've been behind the scenes the whole time....watching you through the screen....waiting to strike with furious food knowledge.

Except not really.  I'm not very into the whole blog writing thing.  It's not my deal.  I've mostly been Will's kitchen assistant, restaurant buddy, and food photographer (speaking of photographing food, I WILL be taking better pictures! I just found my camera cord so I don't have to use the phone camera.)

     What brought me to writing a post was my recent recipe experiment.  Strawberry brownies. No chocolate, just awesome berry flavor and none of that strawberry cake mix or nesquik bull. 

Originally, I was looking for a thick, fudgy consistancy and tons of strawberry flavor, but during tonights 1 a.m. baking excursion I created something marvelous and unexpected.

Fluffy, delightful and moist with a thin, delicate, glazy crust of sugar. They don't quite seem like cupcakes to me. There's something different about them, in my opinion, but I'll call them cupcakes.

This recipe makes a LOT of mini cupcakes.

What you need:

1 cup room temp margarine
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 1/4 cups white sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups chopped strawberries
1/4 cup strawberry yogurt
1/4 cup strawberry jam
1/2 cup strawberry guava juice
a dallop of honey (about a tbsp)
(optional) 1 tsp Mango Amchur powder

     Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line your mini muffin pans with cups. Spray the muffin papers with Baker's Joy, too. They stuck to our paper cups pretty well.
Combine the flour, salt, and baking powder. Feel ashamed as you 'sift' it with a whisk because you don't own a sifter....yet. Set it aside.

     This is the 'smoothie' part! Pull out your blender and throw the berries, yogurt, jam, juice, mango amchur, and a dollop of honey in there, then  blend well. Taste it. Its pretty good. Make your room mates taste it too. Set it aside.

     Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth. Whisk in those eggs, vanilla, and maybe a drop or two of red food coloring.
   
     Pour your blender-full of berry flavor into the butter mixture. Whisk it until its consistancy is uniform.
Whisk in the flour mixture about a half cup at a time. Whisk it until it is, once again, smooth. Scrape the sides as you go.

     Fill your cupcake cups about 2/3's full each.  Bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until springy when gently poked and a toothpick comes out clean.