Eton Mess Cupcakes

I wanted to get this post in there before May ended (so far we've only missed 3 month in 2 and three-quarters years, which I think is pretty good!)

With exams ended, I decided to take advantage of the extra time I had and do some baking, which I haven't done much at uni this year (apart from the relatively easy cake pops). This was evident as I had practically none of the ingredients (my shopping trip to Sainsbury's consisted of: flour, eggs, baking powder, icing sugar, strawberries, double cream, sugar, vanilla extract) or equipment. But even so, they turned out okay:

Makes: 12 largish cupcakes

Ingredients:
140g caster sugar
140g butter
3 medium eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
200g flour
1 tsp baking powder
75g meringue, crushed
Punnet of strawberries (with at least 12 strawberries)
150ml double cream
60g icing sugar

Oven temperature: 180 degrees C

1. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the beaten eggs and vanilla extract and mix to combine.

2. Add the flour, baking powder and 50g of crushed meringue and stir gently together.

3. Fill the cupcake cases with the mixture. Push half a strawberry into the centre of each one. (As you can see in my photo, I just sort of placed them on top, which I wouldn't really recommend because in the oven the strawberries sort of evaporated)

4. Bake for 20 minutes. Leave to cool.

5. Meanwhile, whisk the double cream until stiff. Stir in the icing sugar. Note: my ingredients might not be enough/right ratio for the icing you want (it was quite sweet) but I tend to find recipes have too much icing so I reduced it quite a bit

6. When your cupcakes are cool, spread the icing on top and then finish with half a strawberry and distribute the rest of the crushed meringue.