You can’t go wrong with this recipe for homemade white cake! I think this catchy name says it all, right? Our sister asked me to make up a cake or cupcake for a women’s accounting group she belongs to. The survey she took within the group as to cake flavors and fillings indicated that everyone would like white cake with chocolate frosting but that there was an undercurrent of many berry preferences as well. So I settled on this: white cake with hot fudge filling and frosting, topped with a chocolate dipped strawberry.

White Cake

10 tablespoons softened, unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
4 egg whites
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 vanilla bean (see my post on vanilla)
1 cup milk
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 jar hot fudge at room temperature (I love Mrs. Richardson’s)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter, sugar and salt. Mix in vanilla and vanilla bean until well combined. Scrape down sides of bowl with a spatula. Add in egg whites, one at a time, mixing until each one is fully incorporated and scraping down sides of bowl after each addition. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and baking powder. Add flour mixture into wet ingredients in three parts and alternating with milk, scraping down sides of bowl between additions. Like this: 1/3 flour mixture, ½ milk, 1/3 flour mixture, ½ milk and finishing with the final 1/3 of the flour mixture.

Carefully spoon batter into muffin tins lined with cupcake papers until the cups are ¾ full. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until tops are golden and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Let rest 5 minutes then transfer the cupcakes onto a cooling rack. Once completely cool, scoop out a hole from the center of the cupcakes. I like to use the small end of my melon baller for this. What you do with all of the leftover “cupcake holes” is entirely up to you.

Using a tall glass to stabilize a piping bag or Ziploc bag, spoon hot fudge into the bag, smooth the hot fudge down toward the tip, cut the tip of the bag to desired hole size then twist the end and squeeze the bag to let any air out of the bag until hot fudge comes to the tip. Fill the cavities of each cupcake with the hot fudge then swirl hot fudge on the top.

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

20 strawberries, rinsed and dried
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1 cup 60% cacao chocolate chips
1 cup white chocolate chips

In a double boiler on medium low heat, melt half of the semi sweet and 60% cacao chips together in the. As the chips start to melt, stir in more chips, reserving a handful of chips for the end. Once all chips have melted, remove from heat and stir in the final handful of chocolate chips. Working quickly, dip strawberries in the melted chocolate, one at a time and put them on waxed paper to dry.

Once all of the strawberries have been coated, change (or clean) the bowl in your double boiler and begin to melt white chocolate chips in the same way as the dark chocolate chips. Once white chocolate is melted, spoon it into a piping bag, cut a very small hole in the end of the bag and drizzle white chocolate over the chocolate dipped strawberries. Let strawberries cool and harden then place them on top of the cupcakes.

Makes 20 cupcakes.

Eat Well!

~Trish