Strawberry Cupcakes

These moist Strawberry Cupcakes are perfect for any special occasion and have wonderful flavor.

If you are searching for a light, fluffy, and delicious strawberry cupcake, this is the recipe that you need!

Key Ingredients

Here is a quick look at a few featured ingredients in this strawberry cupcake recipe. Make sure to find the full, printable recipe and ingredient list at the bottom of this post!

• Strawberry Puree- Fresh or frozen(thawed) strawberries work well in this recipe! No need to heat in a saucepan, just run them through a food processor or blender.
• Strawberry Extract (or powdered Strawberry Jello) For an added boost of strawberry flavor! Use 2 teaspoons of strawberry extract OR 2 tablespoons of powdered strawberry jello.
• Cake Flour has less protein than all purpose flour, which results in less gluten formation. This makes for a softer, more tender cake.
• Unsalted Butter We use softened, unsalted butter in this recipe. Using unsalted butter gives us more control over the amount of salt in the recipe. The butter should be softened just to the point that it easily dents when pressed.
• Sour Cream Adds richness and moisture to the cupcakes without thinning the cake batter.

How to Make Strawberry Cupcakes

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, line cupcake pan with cupcake liners.
• In a medium sized bowl mix the dry ingredients: cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Whisk to blend for 30 seconds.  Set aside.
• In another bowl, combine these wet ingredients: sour cream, strawberry puree, strawberry extract and vegetable oil. Blend and set aside.
• In the bowl of your mixer blend the butter until smooth. Gradually add the sugar and mix on medium speed 3 to 5 minutes until fluffy and lightened in color. If using pink coloring gel, you can add it now or at any time during the mixing process.
• Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each until the yolk is blended
• With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture and the sour cream mixture alternately, beginning and ending with the flour mixture (3 additions of dry ingredients, 2  additions of wet ingredients.)
• Mix the strawberry cupcake batter just until combined.

• Scoop batter into cupcake pans that have been prepared with cupcake liners. We usually add about ¼ cup batter per cupcake.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 16-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. We like to remove the cupcakes just after taking from the oven. Cool on a wire rack.

Decorating the Cupcakes

After the cupcakes have cooled completely, it is time to decorate! We used a classic vanilla buttercream frosting today. This is a simple combination of butter, powdered sugar, a pinch of salt, vanilla extract, and milk.

Decorate however you like! We added a fairly thin spiral of frosting to the top of each cupcake using a star tip 21. (We started in the center and spiraled outward until the top of the cupcake was covered.)

We added simple pink daisies (using a round tip 3 for petals and leaves) for some of the cupcakes.

The other cupcakes have ribbon roses piped with a petal tip 104. The ribbon roses are piped onto a square of wax paper on a rose nail, transferred to the freezer to firm up for 10-15 minutes, and then placed on the cake. For all the details on ribbon roses, check out our ribbon roses tutorial!

Recipe FAQs

More Strawberry Cakes

Make sure to check out our Cupcake Recipes section for even more delicious options!

If you are interested in more strawberry cake recipes, we've made many over the years. A few of our favorites are our homemade Strawberry Cake, Strawberry , Strawberry Pound Cake, Strawberry Lemonade Cake, and Strawberry Cake from Cake Mix.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Make sure to check out our full collection of cake recipes, which includes cake recipes from scratch as well as cake mix recipes!

If you'd like to learn more about cake decorating, we have a huge collection of free cake decorating tutorials to share as well!

Strawberry Cupcakes

BY Melissa and Bebe

These moist Strawberry Cupcakes from scratch are so flavorful and perfect for special occasions!

Prep Time: 20 minutes mins

Cook Time: 17 minutes mins

Course: Dessert

Servings: 24

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Ingredients

For the Strawberry Cupcakes

• ▢ 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, softened (170g)
• ▢ 2 cups white sugar (400g)
• ▢ 3 large eggs, room temperature (Place eggs in a bowl of warm water for five minutes if in a hurry.)
• ▢ 3 cups cake flour (342g)
• ▢ 2 teaspoons baking powder (8g)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon baking soda (3g)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt (3g)
• ▢ 1 cup sour cream (full fat) (227g)
• ▢ ½ cup plus two tablespoons strawberry puree (Puree fresh or frozen, thawed strawberries) (161g) Liquefy in a blender or food processor. We did not heat on stovetop.
• ▢ ⅓ cup vegetable oil (68g ) (We use canola oil)
• ▢ 2 teaspoons strawberry extract (8g) (If no extract, you can substitute 2 Tablespoons powdered strawberry jello!)
• ▢ *Pink Coloring Gel- Optional for desired color. We used a small amount.

For the Vanilla Buttercream

• ▢ 2 sticks unsalted butter softened (226g) Should still hold its shape but dent when pressed.
• ▢ 5-6 cups confectioners sugar 690g(You can adjust amount slightly up or down to your liking.)
• ▢ 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 8g (For whiter frosting, you can use clear imitation vanilla)
• ▢ ⅓ cup milk or cream 72g (Adjust amount as needed to reach desired consistency.)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt 3g

Instructions

For the Strawberry Cupcakes

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, line cupcake pan with cupcake liners.
• In a medium sized bowl, add flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Whisk to blend for 30 seconds.  Set aside.
• In another bowl combine the sour cream, strawberry puree, strawberry extract and oil, blend and set aside.
• In the bowl of your mixer blend the butter until smooth. Gradually add the sugar and mix on medium speed 3 to 5 minutes until fluffy and lightened in color. If using pink coloring gel, you can add it now or at any time during the mixing process.
• Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each until the yolk is blended
• With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture and the sour cream mixture alternately, beginning and ending with the flour mixture (3 additions of dry ingredients, 2  additions of wet ingredients.)
• Mix just until combined. Scoop batter into cupcake pans that have been prepared with cupcake liners. We usually add about ¼ cup batter per cupcake.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 16-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. 

Vanilla Buttercream

• Cream the softened butter until smooth. Blend in the vanilla.
• Add half of the powdered sugar and most of the milk. Beat at medium speed until the powdered sugar is incorporated.
• Add remaining powdered sugar and milk and mix at medium speed another 3 to 4 minutes scraping the sides of the bowl occasionally. Then, slow down the mixer to very slow for 1 to 2 minutes. This will help eliminate air pockets in the buttercream. The texture will become very smooth.

Notes

Substitution for cake flour:  Using all purpose flour (plain in the UK) for each cup of flour in a recipe, remove 2 Tablespoons of flour replace with 2 Tablespoons cornstarch (cornflour in the UK).  This recipe has 3 cups of flour so you will measure out 3 cups of all purpose flour, remove 6 Tablespoons and replace with 6 Tablespoons cornstarch, whisk to blend.           

This recipe makes 7 cups batter- approximately 28 cupcakes.

Fresh or frozen strawberries can be used.

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