Neapolitan ice cream . . . the custard of sweet strawberry, creamy chocolate, classic vanilla, and people who are bad at making decisions.
Oh, you poor people who love Neapolitan ice cream. Sure, your gelato game is on point, but what about other desserts? You can't have a Neapolitan cupcake? Or can you?
This recipe is what I like to call "topsy-turvy." Classic vanilla on the bottom, chocolate party on top, and sherbet-like strawberry buttercream in the middle. I suppose if we're being fair, this recipe could also be called The Recipe of Delicious Mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes making these. (I personally blame it on For King & Country, which I was listening to at the time. Darn you knock-off Percy and Monty.)
First, as I was baking the cupcakes, I decided to prematurely bake the vanilla part of only half of the cupcakes. I wasn't sure how the two batters would mix together and I wanted to compare two methods. However, as the vanilla part was baking, I forgot I didn't fill all the cupcake liners and went ahead and mixed in the cocoa powder. So, half of my cupcakes were chocolate cake all the way through. I did taste them and they were delicious too, so if you are prejudiced against vanilla (how dare you) you can keep them completely chocolate and they'll be good.
Unfortunately, I wasn't done messing up. I had forgotten to refrigerate the cake part, so when I tried to cut a cone shape, it all fell apart. I then stuck both the cupcakes and the buttercream into the deep freeze for a few minutes. When I tried injecting the frosting again, the cupcakes were golden but the buttercream was tougher and difficult to get to sit in the hole. Lesson learned kids: your cupcakes need to be cold and your buttercream room temperature.
Multiple mistakes aside, I loved these cupcakes! The cake part was moist and sweet and I adored the buttercream. With strawberry puree and jam in it, it's creamy with a delicious fruity flavor. The deep pink hue is gorgeous, too. It totally tastes like ice cream inside of a cupcake, too, except it doesn't get all messy and melty!
Because spring is right around the corner (yay!), this is the perfect treat to whip up on a Saturday afternoon. Tasty and adorable, these might just replace your nightly ice cream ritual!
I hope you enjoyed this recipe! I certainly had a lot of fun making them. Comment down below any recipes you want me to make and what you're most looking forward to about spring. Happy Saturday!