Cupcakes with a Strawberry Frosting

My sister hit the big 21 a week and a half ago. To celebrate her big milestone she had a Mexican themed party a couple of days after her birthday.
And me being the unorganized, clumsy and careless sister, I was appointed one task and one task only. The cupcakes..duh!

Now, there aren't many mexican flvours that can be distinguished by the party guests, so I went with the one and only; strawberry. I haven't ever really made any flavoured frostings - apart from the usual vanilla and chocolate, obviously - so I was so excited to try this one out. I followed my usual buttercream icing recipe which consisted of the usual butter, icing sugar and vanilla essence, but I improvised when it came to the strawberry tinting and flavouring. Yes. I made the other half of the recipe up.

But don't get discouraged, it works. The recipe totally works! (woohoo!). But to be fair, I did a "trial run" a few weeks before the actual party to test out the recipe. I'm not sure I used the right ingredients for strawberry frosting, but hey, it turned out to be edible so I don't care. Mum and I were wandering around the food store and I was lingering in the canned fruit aisle. I spotted a tin of canned strawberries and I went from there! Because I like to think of myself as organic and chic, I used grated beetroot to create the baby pink colour. This also added flecks of beetroot to the icing which could be mistaken for tiny chunks of strawberry.

Anyway, my story about beetroots and strawberries is probably boring you!

The recipe:

Strawberry Frosting (ices 12 cupcakes)

- 2.5 cups icing sugar
- 250g butter
- 2 Tb of canned strawberry syrup*
- 1 tsp of grated beetroot

Method
Cream butter until light and fluffy. Add icing sugar and continue beating until well incorporated. Add canned strawberry syrup and grated beetroot and stir well to combine.
Spoon in to piping back with a 1M Wilton nozzle and pipe, pipe, pipe away!

*Syrup in which the strawberries are in inside the can.