Happy Valentine's Day!

I was on snack duty for preschool for Valentine's Day. I went through a variety of ideas, but of course it HAS to be cupcakes!

I was trying to come up with something fun, but decided to stick with the classic chocolate cupcake, and then for icing, I decided to come up with a strawberry jam buttercream. There's one kid in the class that has a red dye allergy, so I had to not include anything pink or red.... but a natural pinkness would be perfect.

I also decided to try a trick I saw on pinterest:

Source: flickr.com via Tamara on Pinterest

Heart shaped cupcakes!

Here's the result:





I made a strawberry jam buttercream once before, but it wasn't this perfect. I used that one to top a peanut butter cupcake (and it was a delicious combo), but I think I perfected the recipe this time!

Strawberry Jam Buttercream Icing

1/4 cup butter
1/2 bag of icing sugar
3/4 cups strawberry jam (used my homemade jam from this last summer)
3(ish) Tbsp milk

Using a hand mixer (or you could use a stand mixer), thoroughly mix the butter and jam. Add icing sugar and milk until you have reached the desired consistency. I'm not exactly sure how much milk I used, but I did use half the bag of icing sugar, and just splashed a bit of milk here and there.

Super simple... just buttercream with jam in it.... maybe it was the difference between store bought and homemade preserves.... or maybe I just had the proportions better this time, but it was DELICIOUS... like lick the bowl out delicious.