Cherry Cupcakes

There’s a coffee shop by my house has a board up for patrons to write down song lyrics they thought said something else. If this was a contest, I know I would win hands down! Nobody can mess up a song like I can. A few years ago I got a red convertible, and named it Cherry Pie. To compliment this new little zippy thing, I downloaded a lot of songs with the word “cherry.”

You can guess a few right? “She’s my cherry pie” by Warrant and “Cherry Baby” by Erick Donaldson. And there was one song I couldn’t find, no matter how much I searched for it. I searched by artist, I searched by key word and no luck. One day I was at the office and I had it and I asked a co-worker if they would help me. I told them about the mix tape I was making for my car and that I wanted to find one more song, “Sweet Cherry Pie.”

“Sweet Cherry Pie?” Yeah you know the one, “Sweet Cherry Pie. Da da da. I think that Neil Diamond sings it.” Only to hear in reply, “Every body in the USA knows that the song is Sweet Caroline.”

I adapted the recipe below from the published Sprinkle’s Strawberry Cupcake recipe.  Previously, when I made this recipe I used fresh strawberries and I didn’t feel that the strawberry taste was pronounced enough. So, with this adaptation I used frozen cherries. And, the taste was still very mild. I think maybe it would have been stronger if I had used cherry pie filling instead, but I don’t know.

Cherry Cupcake Recipe

Makes 1 dozen

• 2/3 cup whole fresh or frozen cherries, thawed
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1/4 cup whole milk, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 2 large egg whites, room temperature