Lovely cupcakes for a daycare v-day party

My friend Mylène asked me for a cupcake recipe she could make to bring to her son's daycare for Valentine's day. He's only been in daycare for a month, and doing great! Way to go Josh! I don't know anyone who likes chocolate more than her, so I was trying to think of an easy chocolate cupcake recipe that wouldn't give the kids a massive sugar high! Then realized that v-day is all about hearts and red, pink and white for the kids! So Mylène, you must make these Pinkalicious Cherry Cupcakes.

Rosie at Frosting for the cause has a great post to make them look just like in the book, (one of Chab's favorite BTW), but I'm slightly adapting it here to make it easier to follow. I made these cupcakes a couple of months ago and they got great reviews. They are sweet, and tender, yet sturdy enough not to fall apart everywhere (I hate that about white cupcakes!)

Pinkalicious Cherry Cupcakes

Source : Frosting for the Cause

Makes 2 dozen cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
4 eggs, separated
2 cups sugar
1 cup whole milk
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons maraschino cherry juice
1 cup chopped maraschino cherries
Few drops red/pink gel food colouring (optional)

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. With an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until very fluffy, about 5 minutes. Sift dry ingredients together and set aside. Separate 4 eggs, and set egg whites aside to be beaten. Add the egg yolks to the creamed mixture, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add in vanilla. Mix in a 1/3 of the dry ingredients, then half the milk, 1/3 of the dry ingredients, the rest of the milk, and the rest of the dry ingredients mixing until just combined. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites, and the cherries and juice.  For pinker cupcakes, add a few drops of pink gel food coloring to the batter.

Using ice cream/cookie scoop, fill cupcake liners. Bake until inserted toothpick comes just clean, about 18-20 minutes, but take care to not over-bake. As soon as you have removed cupcakes from oven, remove each of them from pan and place on wire rack and let cool completely.

Now you can make frosting from scratch but for the kids, I would totally do white icing from a can. (I tinted the icing pink when I made them last.) Top with white sprinkles, and a cherry on top (pat it dry so the juice doesn't run all over the frosting). And you have a perfect pinkalicious cupcake for v-day!

Mylène, j'espère que ton coco va passer une super belle St-Valentin!