Cupcakes for Charlotte & Rose

Yesterday I had a fantastic day! I went down with Charlotte to visit my best friend Morgan and her beautiful new daughter, my niece, Rose. Rose is only 7 weeks old but as you can see, her and Charlotte are all ready becoming great friends!

We took the kids to the park and to lunch. It was so gorgeous out. Bean had so much fun running around and Rose was happy as a clam in the sunshine!! It was great to see Morgan too b/c we live pretty far from each other and don't get to see each other as often as we'd like. 

I got home and decided that our sweet little princesses had inspired me to make some sweet little cakes. I made a strawberry swirl cake with whipped cream topping and vanilla cakes with hot pink butter cream.

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2 1/2 cups AP flour

1 1/2 sticks butter, softened

3 eggs

1 3/4 cups sugar

2 tsp vanilla

1 14/ cups milk

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup strawberry preserves

2 tbsp strawberry syrup

3 drops red food dye

Cream butter and sugar together, add eggs and vanilla. Then alternate dry ingredients and milk till fully mixed. Take 1 1/2 cups of batter out and then add in preserves, syrup and dye- mix all together

Set oven to 350 - take a tbsp of strawberry batter and put into each cupcake tin , then 2 tbsp of vanilla batter  and then top with another tbsp of strawberry batter- (makes 12 of these) swirl together with a toothpick-

Vanilla batter left over should make another 12 vanilla cupcakes. Bake cakes for 16 minutes- cool and then frost!!!! 

The strawberry cakes were so delicious and with the whipped cream it was like having a little shortcake. The butter cream I made wasn't too sweet either so it was perfect with the sweetness of the vanilla cake! I love our little princesses and I can't wait to make these cupcakes and many more with both of them in my kitchen helping out and having fun!!