Strawberry Cupcakes

Today is honestly a wonderful day for cupcakes and I’ve got the perfect recipe for some high-altitude-friendly strawberry cupcakes to share today! These are super easy to pull together, they have a pretty pink color, and they are topped with a fluffy whipped cream frosting that I’m obsessed with.

I’m using freeze dried strawberries for this recipe, which are the one special ingredient needed for this recipe. I find that baking with fresh strawberries can be tricky when it comes to cake, and freeze dried berries make the process easy. Let’s get to the recipe!

How to Make Strawberry Cupcakes

The ingredients for these cupcakes are pretty simple with the addition of the freeze dried strawberries. I took one bag of freeze dried strawberries and blended them into a fine powder. You want about 1/4 cup for this recipe, measured after the strawberries have been blended. Then we’re starting out by mixing together the dry ingredients in a bowl.

The entire cake batter can be whisked together by hand here- starting with the melted butter, sugar, and oil until smooth and well combined. Then add in an egg and some vanilla extract and whisk until well combined.

From there, we’re going to add in the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients in alternating additions. You want to start and end with the dry ingredients here, and alternate adding them in with the buttermilk and sour cream mixture.

Once everything has been added, you should have a thick batter. Then it’s time to scoop the batter into your cupcake tin- either greased or with paper liners- before popping them into the oven to bake. You should get 12 cupcakes with this recipe, so divide your batter as evenly as possible.

The frosting for these cupcakes is a whipped cream that gets whipped together with softened cream cheese. The cream cheese gives great flavor, but it also helps keep the whipped cream stable over time.

Optionally, you can top your cupcakes with a fresh strawberry that’s been cut in half for a pretty look. Either way, these cupcakes taste amazing and they look beautiful. Enjoy!

Tips & Tricks for Strawberry Cupcakes

Here are my tips and tricks to help you along the way to making the perfect strawberry cupcakes:

• Do I have to use freeze dried strawberries? This recipe was developed using freeze dried strawberries to avoid adding extra moisture to the cake batter, so I would not recommend skipping or replacing it in this case.
• Mix the batter by hand to help avoid over mixing anything. There’s no need to dirty up your electric mixer unless you’d like to here- since the recipe uses melted butter, it’s super easy to work with by hand.
• How do I know when the batter is fully mixed? You should have a fairly smooth but thick batter with no dry pockets of the flour mixture lingering.
• Do I have to make cupcakes with this batter? No, you can simply make a cake if you prefer. This amount of batter will be enough for a single layer of cake in an 8 inch round or square cake pan. You may find that it takes a little longer to bake a cake in a full cake pan.
• How do I know when the cake is finished baking? The cupcakes should be puffed and a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake should come out with just a few crumbs clinging to it.
• Do I have to use cream cheese in the frosting? The cream cheese helps stabilize the whipped cream. Without it, the whipped cream will become soft within a few hours and start to melt off of the cupcakes!
• I’m at about 5,000 ft. above sea level, and I find that most people who live between about 3,000-7,000 ft. above sea level do not need to make any adjustments to my recipes.

Enjoy!

Print

Strawberry Cupcakes

Servings 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

For the cupcakes:

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 2 tbs. canola oil
• 1 egg
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 cup powdered freeze dried strawberries
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

For the frosting:

• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 4 oz softened cream cheese
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• Fresh strawberries to top

Instructions

For the cupcakes:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper cupcake liners. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, melted butter, and canola oil until well combined. Whisk in the egg and vanilla extract until just combined. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and powdered freeze dried strawberries. In a small bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and sour cream.
3. Add about 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar mixture and stir until just mixed through. Add in about 1/2 of the milk mixture, and stir to combined. Repeat this alternating mixing until everything has been mixed through.
4. Scoop your batter into your prepared cupcake liners. The batter will come pretty close to the top of each cupcake cup, but don’t worry, that’s how it’s supposed to be! You should get 12 cupcakes from this batter. Bake the cupcakes for 16-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. Cool the cupcakes for 10 minutes in the pan, and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the frosting:

1. In a large bowl, whip the heavy cream until soft peaks have formed. In a small bowl, whip the cream cheese until smooth. Add the cream cheese into the heavy cream along with the powdered sugar and vanilla extract, and continue whipping until stiff peaks have formed.
2. Frost cupcakes as desired, optionally topping each cupcake with half of a fresh strawberry. Enjoy!

Dough-Eyed

Hello and welcome! My name is Nicole, and Dough-eyed is a food blog for people who want to bake for their family and friends in high-altitude areas. Think of me as a friendly voice there with you in the kitchen, here to give you confidence when you’re baking, and to help you with the struggles of baking at high-altitude. Come back every week for new recipes, tips, and advice on high-altitude baking!