Neopolitan Cupcakes

Can't decide what flavor you want? Why not have them all-in-one!?

I made cupcakes for a birthday at the office tomorrow and was given liberty to choose the flavor.
*drunk with power*

I saw an image for a Neopolitan Cupcake recipe in one of the many cupcake cookbooks out there, and was disappointed in how the cupcake itself was merely a marble cake that completely disregarded the strawberry flavor altogether. Feeling like it was an issue I should fix, I created the complete Neopolitan Cupcake, from batter to frosting - through and through.

I decided to use my standard "off-white" cake recipe (not quite white, not quite yellow) and double it. I creamed the butter and sugar all together, then separated it into 3 bowls. I then specialized each batch by adding cocoa powder to one and a couple tablespoons of strawberry jam to another and finished mixing the batters. (Admission of guilt: I wanted to leave my cupcakes all natural, and as nature intended and all that, but couldn't help the marketing person inside me who was not convinced that the strawberry looked very flavorful, so did add a dab of good ol' red concentrate to liven the batter up).

To prepare them, I actually ended up cupping each liner in my hand and quickly dropped a spoonful of each flavor into the liner, while carefully using gravity to keep the strawberry batter on the far edge of the liner while I hurried to fill the rest with chocolate and then vanilla. The vanilla in many instances ended up more or less resting on top of the chocolate scoop, but once I put the liner into the pan, it seemed to smooth out and look more even.

I baked them for just under 20 minutes, and made a cream cheese based frosting for them. I did similar to the batters by simply adding cocoa powder and jam to make the second and third flavors. The only thing I would do differently next time is create each batch of frosting completely separate (instead of creaming the butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar altogether and then separating them into 3 bowls at that point). I think the differences will be that the cocoa powder will be sifted in with the powdered sugar from the start, making it smoother, and the jam to frosting ratio will be better proportioned, as this time, I felt like the strawberry frosting was a bit runnier than the others.

But all that considered, I think it worked out well. It was a bit more labor intensive than most cupcakes simply because I decided to frost them all by spatula in 3 separate batches as opposed to using 3 separate pastry bags. But I thought it would have a nice effect to look more like ice cream than to have some fancy decorative tip.

I'm ready for another taste-test right now :)