Chocolate strawberry cupcakes recipe

These luxurious chocolate strawberry cupcakes have rich chocolate and soft strawberry sponge. Topped with pink strawberry buttercream and finished with a fresh strawberry. 

It takes just 20 minutes to bake these mouth-watering chocolate strawberry cupcakes. This recipe uses freeze-dried strawberries which are much stronger and punchier in flavour. Once opened you must keep the pack of freeze-dried strawberries airtight as the fruit can becomes sticky. If you like they can be crushed to a powder to give flavour and colour to cake mixes and icings.

Ingredients

• 150g butter, at room temperature
• 150g caster sugar
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 100g self raising flour
• 50g cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 15g freeze-dried strawberries, crushed

For the strawberry buttercream icing:

• 50g butter
• 200g icing sugar
• 5g finely ground freeze-dried strawberries
• Pink food colouring
• 12x strawberries

Method

1. To make this cupcake recipe, preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/ Gas Mark 4.Place 12 paper cupcake cases in a cupcake tray.
2. Mix the butter and sugar in a bowl with a wooden spoon or electric mixer until light and creamy. Gradually beat in the eggs a little at a time, beating well until smooth and soft. If the mixture curdles, beat in a tablespoonful of the flour.
3. Stir in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and vanilla extract until smooth. Add the crushed dried strawberries and lightly stir through.
4. Place a heaped dessertspoon full of mixture in each cupcake case and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden and just firm to the touch. Cool on a wire rack.
5. To make the butter cream, place the butter in a bowl with 1-2 tsp boiling water, add the icing sugar and strawberries and beat until smooth. Add the food colouring, a little at a time, and mix to the desired shade of pink. Place the icing in a piping bag with a small star nozzle and pipe on top of the cakes. Alternatively, spread the icing over the cakes and swirl with a round-bladed knife. Decorate with heart-shaped sprinkles.

Top tips for making chocolate strawberry cupcakes

You can make these cupcakes ahead of time and store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 days. Pipe on the strawberry buttercream before serving. Decorate with a fresh strawberry last minute to make sure the strawberry doesn’t blend into the icing.

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