Strawberry Cupcakes With Whipped Cream Frosting -- The Taste of Summer Arriving

Mamma called Tuesday morning at 10 AM, as she always does, as she has done since she had a phone of her own in 1953. She wanted to know what I was making for dinner. The question matters to her in a way that I now understand at sixty-eight in a way I did not understand at thirty. The asking is the love. The answering is the love. The conversation is the bridge across the days. We talked for nineteen minutes. Mamma is ninety. The phone calls are precious and finite. I do not waste them. Anna sent photos from Minneapolis — the kids in their school uniforms, David's new bookshelf, the dog (their dog, not mine; their dog is named Cooper, and Cooper is a Bernese mountain dog who weighs more than Anna and who is, by all accounts, the most relaxed dog in the upper Midwest). I printed three of the photos and put them on the fridge. The fridge holds the family that is not currently in the kitchen. Elsa called from Voyageurs. She had a sighting of a wolf — a single gray adult crossing a frozen bay at dawn, fifty yards from her cabin. She had a sighting of a moose two days later. She is happy in the woods. I am glad someone in this family is happy in the woods. I have always loved Lake Superior, but the deeper woods are not for me. Elsa is for the deeper woods. The match is right. I cooked Strawberry shortcake this week. Buttermilk biscuits, sliced strawberries macerated with sugar, fresh whipped cream. The first strawberries of the season, from the co-op until the local berries come in. The taste of summer arriving. Damiano Center, Thursday. New volunteer this week — a young woman named Sara, just out of college, looking lost and brave. I showed her how to ladle. She caught on quickly. She asked me how long I had been doing this. I said: "Long enough that I do not count." She laughed. She will be back. The good ones come back. Paul's chair is at the head of the table. His glasses are on the shelf. The arrangement is permanent. The arrangement is the love. The arrangement has been remarked on, gently, by various people over the years — Anna, mostly, and well-meaning friends. The arrangement persists. I do not require justification for it. The chair is the chair. It is enough. It has to be. And on a morning like this, with the lake doing what the lake does and the dog at my feet and the bread on the counter and the kitchen warm enough to live in, it is. I have started, in the last few years, to think about what I will leave behind. Not in a morbid way. In a practical way. The recipes are written down. The notebook is on the counter. The kitchen is in good order. The house is in Anna's name (we did the legal work in 2032; the kids agreed; it was the practical thing). The grandchildren and great-grandchildren each have a few small specific things — a wooden spoon, a bread pan, a particular cast iron skillet — that I have already labeled with their names on small pieces of masking tape. Nobody knows about the masking tape labels. They will find them when they find them. Paul used to say that the difference between a place and a home was that a home was a place where you knew, from any room, what was happening in any other room. I knew, from the kitchen, when he was reading in the living room. I knew, from the bedroom, when he was getting coffee in the kitchen. The Kenwood house is still that kind of home. From the kitchen I know that Sven is asleep on his bed in the dining room (the small specific snore). From the kitchen I know what time the radio in the living room is set to come on. The home is the body of knowledge of itself. I still live inside that body of knowledge, even though Paul is not the one creating most of the data anymore. It is enough.

The first strawberries of the season always go into shortcake at this house — buttermilk biscuits, macerated berries, fresh whipped cream — but this week I let them go somewhere a little different. These cupcakes carry the same spirit: the bright sweetness of summer’s first berries, the softness of whipped cream, the sense that something good is beginning. After a week of phone calls and wolf sightings and a new volunteer learning how to ladle, I needed the kitchen to feel like celebration. These did exactly that.

Strawberry Cupcakes With Whipped Cream Frosting

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 3/4 cup fresh strawberries, finely diced
• For the whipped cream frosting:
• 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream, cold
• 3 tablespoons powdered sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 12 small fresh strawberries, for garnish

Instructions

1. Preheat and prepare. Heat your oven to 350°F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners and set aside.
2. Whisk the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and granulated sugar together with a hand mixer on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
4. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then mix in the vanilla extract until fully combined.
5. Alternate dry and wet. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk in two additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Mix until just combined — do not overmix.
6. Fold in strawberries. Gently fold the diced fresh strawberries into the batter with a rubber spatula.
7. Fill and bake. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared liners, filling each about 2/3 full. Bake for 18–20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
8. Make the whipped cream frosting. Once cupcakes are fully cool, beat the cold heavy cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla in a chilled bowl on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form. Do not overbeat.
9. Frost and garnish. Spoon or pipe the whipped cream generously onto each cooled cupcake. Top each with a fresh whole strawberry. Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 4 hours.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 285 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 17g | Carbs: 30g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 145mg