When we are in need of a quick-fix to indulge our sweet tooth, one of the foods we normally turn to is a cupcake. While there are now a lot of sweet shops and bakeries to choose from, cupcakes sometimes seem tastier when freshly baked from our own kitchens. We also look for a variety of flavors and nothing can lend variety to cupcakes better than fruits can.
Some find using fruits difficult primarily because of their seasonal nature and they are not usually something that you can keep in your pantry the way cocoa powder and chocolate chips could be kept. So, do we only have fruity cupcakes in the summer? Not anymore. It can be summer and fruity all year with proper freezing.
Freeze those Fruits!
A good trick for having fresh ingredients such as fruits ready for cupcakes or any recipe, for that matter is to buy them in bulk when they can be had fresh. Berries are normally the best fruits for this. You can buy the freshest blueberries, raspberries and strawberries when they are in season. To keep them, spread them out on a flat sheet or tray, making sure that there are spaces between the fruits. Freeze them while on the sheets until they are frozen solid. Once they are in this stage, you can repack them into individual containers or re-sealable bags, labeling them accordingly.
It is best to measure and keep enough frozen fruits for one recipe in each container, so that you will only need to thaw the amount that you will be baking. You can be creative with this as well. You may mix fruits up in one container and have cupcakes with different fresh fruits in them when you bake them. You will certainly surprise your family and friends when you serve them fresh blueberry cupcakes in the winter.
Another way to keep fresh fruit cupcakes is to freeze them when they are freshly baked. You can bake batches of cupcakes when the fruits are fresh, and store them in the freezer once they are cooled. These cupcakes can last up to six months in the freezer, as long as you don’t remove them from the freezer and put them back in.
Just like freezing the fruits, freeze the cupcakes individually by laying them out on a sheet or shallow tray. This time though, wrap each cupcake tightly in plastic wrap after chilling them for about 20 minutes before freezing them. Keep them in packs that you know will be consumed at the same time. Do not put frosting on cupcakes that you intend to freeze. You may add the frosting later. To thaw the cupcakes, just leave them on the counter overnight.
You can also choose to use canned fruit. This is one form of fruit that you can certainly keep in your pantry. Study your recipes to see how you can substitute canned fruits instead of fresh. You may need to adjust the amount of sugar in the recipe since canned fruits are normally sweetened.
By Lisa Paterson
Article Sources : http://ezinearticles.com/?Fruity-Cupcakes-All-Year-Long&id=1808367
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