Alice in Cupcakeland

I went out to dinner last night and a friend started talking about the Margarita night she'd had down at the Mexican Cafe, which started me thinking about how I could mix tequila into a cupcake! I came across a vegan recipe for Margarita Cupcakes, which I decided to adapt to a non-vegan version. I then decided to up the ante and make this a Strawberry Margarita Cupcake... MMMMM!

There's a lot of recipes out there for this using thing like coolade (which we can't get here and why would you want to use something so artificial anyway?) or strawberry margarita mix, but I think my version is pretty much as close as you can get to a REAL strawberry margarita in cake form.. Well, other than the canned strawberries!

Ingredients

1/4 cup lime juice
1 cup canned strawberries, drained (keep the syrup to the side)
1/2 c of the strawberry syrup from the can
1/2 c milk
1/4 c vegetable oil
2 tsp tequila
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 c sugar
1 1/3 c flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat your oven to 175 C and line 2 x 12 hole cupcake trays. Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder, sugar and salt into a large bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and beat the mixture for at least 3 minutes, until it's smooth and fluffy.

Fill the cupcake liners 3/4 of the way full with the batter and bake until the cupcakes spring back when pressed, around 20-24 minutes.

Icing

1 egg white
1 1/4 c icing sugar
3 c fresh strawberries pureed OR
1 c strawberries in syrup pureed (drain the syrup first)
2 TBS Tequila

Beat the egg white until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in icing sugar, then the pureed strawberries and finally the tequila. Mix until combined.

Once you've iced the cupcakes, roll the edges in the loose sugar, to give the same effect as a salted glass, and you're done!