Adjustments to Pink Cupcakes

So, I didn't realize how excited I was to be documenting my experience but I am totally thrilled. My thoughts were consumed about getting the second batch going and what type of frosting to use and how I can try new ingredients and so on...All night and all morning my thoughts were on these pink cupcakes. I had sweet dreams for sure.
Anyway, this morning I got started and found that I had to increase the flour because the jam increased the liquid in the batter and the batter was too wet. I don't really want to increase the flour because it's adjusted so I can use A.P. flour rather than cake flour, but I did it anyway. They're baking now so I have no results. Also, rather than trying the muffin method of baking I tried the dump method + eggs (yeah I think that's my own terminology). Which means I put everything in the mixing bowl and turned on the mixer, when everything was combined I added one egg until it was incorporated then added the other egg and let the mixer go until everything was incorporated. I did not let it mix for 2 min this time. I am hoping less mixing means less gluten which means lighter fluffier cupcakes rather than heavy chewy cupcakes. We'll See. I'm gonna go clean up. I'll update you on texture/flavor in a bit.

The cupcakes are finished and again look great. I did find that the darker pan I was using made darker cupcakes and the lighter made more golden cupcakes so I'll be filling the lighter pan with batter from now on and using the darker pan to hold the leftovers.

Results...
Warm from the oven- They were gorgeous and smelled great. A great spring when touched on top. The crumb was lighter and less sticky. They were still a little more chewy than I'm looking for. The strawberry flavor had no noticeable difference and they were no longer sweet enough. The oil made a big difference in the flavor, it really masked the strawberry. The baking powder after taste was gone and I think the addition of a little more salt helped deepen the flavors.  These were good enough to frost but I will try one more batch with a couple of changes to see if I can get exactly what I'm going for.

Changes...
Use the original amount of flour called for in the recipe (Hopefully to lighten them a bit more), use the amount of jam and sugar in my first batch, so increase sugar and decrease jam. Replace half of oil with softened butter (To allow more strawberry flavor to shine). Use egg whites instead of whole eggs (Hopefully to eliminate the need for food coloring). Replace milk with strawberry drinkable yogurt and decrease milk from 9 oz to 4 oz. Add 2 T. buttermilk powder. (Hopefully to lighten the crumb) The dump method seemed to work well for this batter so I'll be using that method again.