Simple Strawberry Cupcake Recipe

As we are still having some beautiful weather and whilst strawberries are still readily available to pick fresh, I thought I’d share my Strawberry Cupcake recipe. These cupcakes have been a huge hit this year, in fact, they are every year, and I have to confess that I always bake quite a few extra for myself.

Once baked the cupcakes are very moist and delicious and a must for any summer dessert. I’ve even tried one warmed up with a little bit of custard and it was heavenly. The fresh strawberries combined with the delicious creamy buttercream is a perfect combo. Seriously though, if you want to try a fruit-based cupcake you really need to make these.

They are very simple and easy too.

Recipe – for 12 cupcakes

1. 200g unsalted butter (softened at room temperature)
2. 15 strawberries…or thereabouts
3. 200g caster sugar
4. 3 free-range eggs lightly beaten
5. 1 pinch of salt
6. 1 tsp vanilla bean paste (extract will work fine too)
7. 200g self-raising flour
8. 1 big dollop of buttermilk – (I’m sorry for the ‘dollop’ I never measure this, but around 60ml) 😉

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 155°C
2. Prepare your cupcake tray with the liners
3. Chop up the strawberries and set aside in a bowl
4. In a mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar – (by hand is fine too)
5. Crack and beat your eggs in a separate bowl with the salt and add these gradually to the mixture. I normally do this in 2 parts.
6. Add your vanilla bean paste and your buttermilk
7. Add the flour in two parts – taking care not to overbeat.
8. Finally add the strawberries and carefully fold into the mixture
9. Spoon into your cupcake cases – I use an ice-cream scoop so they are all the same size but generally they should be ¾ full
10. Bake for 25 minutes.
11. Remove immediately from the cupcake tray onto a cooling rack.

The smell of these whilst they are baking and when they come out of your oven is amazing!

Decoration

These cupcakes go with pretty much any type of icing. My favourite is with white chocolate buttercream but you could also use cream cheese frosting, Italian meringue buttercream or even ganache.

Alternative ideas

For an Extra Twist add some champagne – they taste amazing! Add some mint extract to your buttercream, or blend your strawberries into a syrup rather than chop them. Dye your cake mixture pink? Maybe even for your strawberries you use for decorating you can dip in chocolate – total decadence..

Handy Tip

In the summer months buttercream can be quite messy and even melt if you are not careful! One tip is to replace 1/4 of your regular icing sugar with Royal Icing sugar as this will help it firm up quicker and keep its lovely texture without affecting the taste either.

You may also like these recipes; Chocolate Chip Banana Bread, Indulgent Chocolate Cupcake Recipe