Spaghetti & meatball (strawberry) cupcakes

My cousin Steph & her husband Jake (our best friends) came down from Johnson City, TN over the weekend to pick up their new kitten (we rescued from under our house) and visit with us for a few days. We had a blast riding our bikes around the city, picnicking, chatting, and baking while the guys were away. My mother-in-law, Tammy, who also shares the joy of gawking at all things cute, recently bought me the book “Hello Cupcake!” that’s filled with the most adorable and complicated cupcakes you ever did see. Steph and I chose to tackle the spaghetti and meatball one (with slight alterations of course). We had a blast making them and they turned out DELICIOUS and moist!

For the cupcake part we used the “Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes” book and followed the strawberry cupcakes recipe using about a pound of fresh strawberries from our local farmer’s market. It was a simple recipe (basically a plain vanilla cupcake with chopped strawberries folded in). The strawberries ended up making the cupcakes stay really moist after baking. They were so yummy we saved half of them as muffins and left the icing off completely!

For the spaghetti topping we whipped up some home-made frosting using confectioners sugar, butter, water, and vanilla suitable for piping on some nice solid noodles. We piled the stringy icing on the top and then rolled Lindor Truffles in strawberry jam (for the meatballs and spaghetti sauce). The original recipe called for Ferrero Rocher chocolates but Steph doesn’t like them so we opted for the truffles instead. The only problem with that is that the jam slipped right off of them! The Ferrero Rocher chocolates probably would have retained the sauce-like jam better. We still thought it looked pretty convincing! Then you just top them off with some grated white chocolate to look like parmesan cheese! Perfect!

They turned out very rich but oh-so-tasty! I highly recommend you try to make some with your own favorite cupcake recipe! They are so fun. Kids would love them!