Strawberry Cooked Flour Frosting

Yes, I know cooked flour frosting sounds a little weird but this recipe solves two of baking's biggest conundrums: 

1.  How do you make a super creamy buttercream frosting that isn't sickeningly sweet?

2.  How do you get fantastic strawberry flavor into cupcakes without super smushy strawberry blobs through out your divine deliciousness?

I like when recipes solve enormous problems like these. 

So first the strawberries.  I'm not going to lie to you...the idea to throw dried strawberries into the food processor to make a powder came straight from Pinterest.  Yep, yep.  It's genius really.  Since I have a great love for my dear Laura Ingalls Wilder and life on the hard and unforgiving prairie, you can only imagine what comes out of my dehydrator.  My dehydrating is a little bit obsessive really. 

But the sickness does manifest in lots of yummy dried fruit.  I ground up dried strawberries in a coffee grinder until I had 2/3 of a cup.  Unfortunately these were previously dried berries so I couldn't tell you how many fresh berries were needed.  Just keep drying fruit until you have tons--it's pretty awesome to eat as a snack as well. 

Then onto the cooked flour frosting.  The basic premise of cooked flour frosting is that you make a cooked flour roux that you add to a mixture of butter and....wait for it.....a single cup of granulated sugar.  The reduced sugar results in a less sweet frosting and the cooked flour helps the frosting hold shape.  You'd think you should be worried about using granulated sugar but if you beat it for the full time, all of those sugar granules melt right into the frosting. 

I too, was skeptical the first time I made this and as it turns out, it's the only frosting recipe I've ever made that has people always asking for the recipe.  Once, I man who I happened to know never baked in his entire life asked for the recipe.  True enough. 

Strawberry powder is pretty cool stuff.  You can bet I'll be grinding up all different types of fruit next.  

And the taste?  It's definitely reminiscent of strawberry ice cream.  I think strawberry frosting paired well with lemon cupcakes-- I'm guessing it will pair well with many of your favorite cupcake recipes.  

Strawberry Cooked Flour Frosting

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup butter at room temperature
1 cup whole milk
2 tsp vanilla

2/3 cup dried strawberry powder

Directions:

1. Blend flour and about 1/4 cup of the cold milk in a saucepan and whisk well and place on stove over med-low heat. 
2. Add the remaining milk, whisking constantly. 
3. Cook flour and milk until very thick. 
4. Remove from heat, and cool. 
5. Cream sugar, butter and vanilla until very light and fluffy, about 4-5 minutes. 
6. Add cooked flour, vanilla and strawberry powder to butter mixture.  Turn mixer to medium-high and beat ingredients together until sugar crystals are completely dissolved and frosting is light and creamy (about 5-6 mins)
7. Frost cupcakes while frosting is soft.  Refrigerate remaining. 
8. Cupcakes with this frosting should be refrigerated.