May 29, 2023
Z has officially reached a new milestone this month. She turned one year old and has been walking with some assistance. For such a momentous occasion for Kev and I, we had to celebrate in a special way. I thought back to all our adventures with Z throughout the year and still cannot believe how quickly time has flown by. The early days were much longer than we would like, but watching Z grow from day to day has brought us so much joy. I remember exactly a year ago in May when we brought Z home from the hospital. She was a tiny baby weighing just over six pounds. The early days were the most challenging days. We operated on very little sleep and had to return to work fairly quickly. Kev had two months to bond with Z. I had slightly less. Luckily for us, aside from some challenges with sleeping through the night, Z cooperated with us for the most part. She ate pretty much anything we offered and reached all her milestones at the predicted times. Watching Z grow from a tiny baby to a tiny human has been an absolute joy. When I look at her today, I still cannot believe the tiny human half my height was only born a year ago. As her birthday approached this year, I had to think of a special way to celebrate. I did some googling and brainstorming for inspiration. Though there were a lot of ideas out there on the internet, I wanted to do something unique for Z. I wanted to center her birthday celebration on a children’s book theme. When I came across The Wonderful Things You Will Be book sitting on her bookshelf, the idea for her birthday celebration was born. Wonderful became onederful or 1derful of course. With the theme decided, I shifted my focus to the desserts. Growing up in our household, desserts tend to be on the simpler side. We usually had a sponge cake with cream and fresh fruit that my parents bought from a local bakery and a plate of fruits. I wanted to apply the same tradition to Z’s birthday and merged a celebratory treat with a realistic baby-friendly sweet. Z would get a variety of fruits, while we would get to enjoy the baked treats. Z ended up with a fruit plate. We ended up with cupcakes and cake pops. Z’s cupcakes and cake pops had to be special and different from the ones I typically make, so I decided to merge my go-to strawberry cupcakes with red dragon fruit. I opted to add red dragon fruit to strawberry cupcakes mainly because of the Barbie-like pink color found naturally in the red dragon fruit. I first tested out the combination of dragon fruit and strawberries when developing a dragon fruit raspberry hot chocolate recipe for the colder months. I interchanged the raspberries and strawberries in the hot chocolate recipe as they both offer the same type of sweet and slight tart balance to the hot chocolate. I loved the combination of the slightly sweet dragon fruit paired with the sweet and tart strawberries so much that I extended the flavor profile to my cupcakes and cake pops. Dragon fruit itself has a mild sweetness to it and pairs perfectly with strawberries. When combined, the dragon fruit and strawberry puree gives the cupcakes and frosting an eye-catching pink dessert reminiscent of Barbiecore pink. The bright vibrant pink comes naturally from the red dragon fruit and is enhanced further from the redness of the strawberries. I only buy red dragon fruit occasionally because of how expensive it is. Red dragon fruit is texturally like a kiwi, but is much less sweet with a slight tartness to it. Folded into cupcakes, you get not only a delicious sweet treat, but a truly stunning pink treat. My cupcake recipe yielded exactly twelve cupcakes, which fit perfectly into a 12-cup muffin tin. Half of the cupcakes were served as cupcakes, while the rest were crumbled into a bowl, mixed with some frosting, and turned into cake balls for cake pops. The cake pops were dipped into colored candy melts and left to harden. I only used white, red, yellow, and blue candy melts for the cake pops, mixing some of the colors together as needed to form orange and purple for other color options. To allow the cake pops to harden without disturbance, I used the back of a collapsible silicone colander as a makeshift cake pop holder. The candy-coated cake pops were intended to look like balloons that floated on the cover of the children’s book. The best part about these treats is the stunning Barbie-like pink color comes naturally from the colors of the fruits without the added food coloring. Since Z’s palate is still developing at this age, a mild fruit such as dragon fruit was the perfect fruit for her to try. To round out the rest of our dessert spread, we had to have an equally stunning fruit plate, a must-have in our household. We served it up to Z just so she can get a head start on our family traditions. With the fruit plate, cupcakes, and cake pops all prepared, we just had to snap some photos before digging right into the lovely desserts.
Dragon Fruit Strawberry Cupcakes*
(Makes 12 cupcakes)
For the dragon fruit strawberry cupcakes:
· 1¾ cups all-purpose flour
· 1½ teaspoons baking powder
· ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
· zest of a small lemon
· ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
· ¾ cup granulated sugar
· 2 large eggs, room temperature
· ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
· ¼ cup pureed red dragon fruit, strained to remove the seeds
· ¼ cup pureed strawberries, strained to remove the seeds
· ¼ cup whole milk
For the dragon fruit strawberry frosting:
· ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
· 1½ tablespoons pureed red dragon fruit and strawberries, strained to remove the seeds
· ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
· 2-3 cups confectioners’ sugar
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with cupcake liners.
2) In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, kosher salt, and lemon zest. Set aside.
3) In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well between each addition. Add the vanilla extract, pureed red dragon fruit, and pureed strawberries. Mix until combined. Add half of the flour mixture, and half of the milk. Stir to combine all the ingredients. Add the remaining flour mixture and milk. Combine until the batter is smooth.
4) Distribute the batter evenly into the muffin tin lined with cupcake liners.
5) Bake the cupcakes in the center rack of the oven for 20-25 minutes. Remove the cupcakes from the oven and let them cool completely before frosting.
6) To make the frosting, combine the butter, pureed red dragon fruit and strawberries, and vanilla extract. Mix well. Add the confectioners’ sugar half a cup at a time and mix until desired consistency is achieved. You may not need to use all 3 cups of confectioners' sugar.
7) To decorate the cupcakes, use a large star tip and pastry bag. Starting at the outer edge and finishing at the center, pipe out frosting and make large swirls on top of the cupcakes.
*Alternatively, this recipe yields six cupcakes and 24 cake pops. I ended up decorating and serving six cupcakes and turning the rest into cake pops.
Here are the rest of the steps if intending to make both cupcakes and cake pops:
8) Set aside half of the cupcakes to decorate and reserve the rest for cake pops. Decorate the cupcakes following the instructions above. To make the cake pops, crumble the remaining cupcakes and fold in the remaining frosting. Use clean hands to mix the crumbled cake and frosting together.
9) Roll the mixture into ½ inch cake balls and set the cake balls aside on a nonstick plate. Chill the cake balls in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before dipping.
10) When ready to make cake pops, melt colored candy melts in the microwave at 30-second intervals until fully melted. Working quickly, dip the end of the paper candy sticks into the colored candy melts and press the candy sticks directly into the center of the cake balls to form cake pops. Gently scrape off any excess candy melts. Let the cake pops harden with the stick side down on a collapsible silicone colander. If desired, chill the cake pops in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
Here’s a photo of Z opening all the gifts she received from our family and friends.
Here’s a photo of me from an earlier iteration of prepping everything for Z’s birthday celebration!
Takeaways: The cupcakes and cake pops can be prepared a day in advance to make assembly easier. When putting together Z’s birthday celebration cupcakes and cakes pops, I baked up the cupcakes the day before and allowed them to chill in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, I prepared the frosting, decorated half of the cupcakes, and reserved the rest for making cake balls. I chilled the cake balls before turning them into cake pops following the steps above.