Happy Valentine’s Day! To celebrate the day, I opted to make cupcakes. Strawberry lemonade is one of my favorite treats. I decided that I needed to make it into a cupcake.

For the base, I used a wonderful lemon cupcake recipe from the Stir. The cake is a bit more dense than traditional cake. However, it is very moist.

For this baking session, I tried using free-standing silicon cupcake holders and a traditional tin. The cakes looked so different! Can you guess which one is the silicon?

The silicon is on the left. The cupcake liners did not fit well so the cakes had an uneven bottom and one edge popping in. The traditional tin sheet gave the cakes a brown edge from the pan. Overall, I preferred the color of the silicon but the shape of the tin. I may need to invest in a silicon pan that is a solid piece of silicon.

For the frosting, I made a decadent strawberry buttercream from my baking addiction. However, I found that the strawberry flavor was not strong enough. It is most likely because strawberries are out of season. I ended up adding two more tablespoons of strawberries to the frosting with some powder sugar to thicken it back up. After a frosting disaster with my decorating bag, I gave up and went with the old fashion smooth frosting style.

To add a little wow to cupcakes since the frosting was so plain, I opted to make hearts from strawberries. Here is a Vine of my cutting technique:

Happy Valentine’s Day! vine.co/v/brALd50Z7D2

— Kaila Carty (@techybaker) February 14, 2013