Strawberry Filled Cupcakes

Moist, juicy, perfectly sweet Strawberry Filled Cupcakes are made with the easiest vanilla cupcake batter and a whole strawberry baked inside! They’re topped with the simplest fresh strawberry buttercream.

These Strawberry Filled Cupcakes might come in a first place tie with strawberry shortcake for best summer dessert! They’re fruity, perfectly sweet, and simple to make!

Is there anything better than in season strawberries? I make my Roasted Strawberry Crumb Bars year round, but they are by far the best when made with in season berries!

Another sweet way to cool down and enjoy some strawberries is definitely with my sweet, creamy No Churn Raspberry and Roasted Strawberry Ice Cream!

THREE PARTS TO THESE STRAWBERRY FILLED CUPCAKES

• Vanilla Cupcakes: These vanilla cupcakes are soft and perfectly sweet! I love this cupcake recipe so much that it’s also the base for my Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes!
• Whole Strawberries: Each cupcakes is baked with a whole strawberry inside! The strawberries become perfectly roasted as the cupcakes bake and give a burst of color, juice and sweet flavor with every bite!
• Strawberry Buttercream Frosting: This from scratch buttercream frosting is made with fresh strawberries!

Bonus: these cupcakes are super easy to make. You just need some basic pantry ingredients and the freshest, sweetest strawberries you can find!

THE STRAWBERRIES

The strawberries in the middles of the cupcakes are the stars of these cupcakes! Use any shape or size and try to use the freshest, sweetest, most beautiful berries you can find.

I try to choose medium sized berries and chose the freshest, reddest ones out of my bunch. Hull the strawberries, remove the white middles, but leave them whole. If you’ve never hulled strawberries before, check out this post called A Step By Step Guide to Hulling Strawberries by The Spruce Eats.

HOW TO FILL THE CUPCAKES

1. Spoon two tablespoons of batter into each cupcake liner.
2. Place a whole strawberry in the middle of each cupcake then spoon one more tablespoon of batter around it. This is nothard, but it is….a little awkward! Use one hand to kind of hold the berry standing up straight in the middle while gently spooning batter around it.
3. I spoon that last tablespoon in by dropping three teaspoons in around the sides of the berry/cupcake. Adding it by the teaspoon is easier since a teaspoon is smaller and easier to slide in there and three teaspoons make a tablespoon.

The strawberry in the middle of these cupcakes definitely reminds me of my Cupcakes with Hearts in the Middle recipe! They’re the cutest cupcakes baked with a red velvet heart in the middle. For a chocolate stuffed cupcake, definitely try these Nutella Stuffed Chocolate Cupcakes with Nutella Buttercream!

HOW TO MAKE THE STRAWBERRY BUTTERCREAM

To make the frosting, you’ll need a bowl, an electric mixer and the following ingredients:

• Room Temperature Butter: Butter that is not too soft and not too cold will help get the perfect consistency. Take the butter out no more than 20 minutes before making it.
• A Little Salt
• Powdered Sugar: Even though it’s going to go into a mixer, I highly recommend sifting it first. It only takes a minute and makes sure you don’t have any little bumps of powdered sugar in your frosting.
• Vanilla Extract: For flavor and it ties in with the flavor of the cupcakes.
• Heavy Cream Or Milk: Optional. If you need to thin the frosting out a bit.
• Lightly Pureed Strawberries: They add flavor and color and hint at the big roasted strawberry tucked inside! See below for more info on the strawberries.

TIPS FOR MAKING STRAWBERRY BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

• Core the strawberries before pureeing them. This just means cutting out the tops and the white part in the top/middle. It doesn’t have any flavor and I’d rather have only the parts that add color/flavor.Pulse the hulled strawberries in a food processor. It chops them up into perfectly sized specks which look so pretty when piped on cupcakes! (If you don’t have a food processor, finely chopping the berries works).

HOW TO FROST THESE CUPCAKES

These cupcakes will look and taste great however you frost them! That said, here are a few suggestions on how to frost them:

• PIPE THE FROSTING: I’ve made these using my Wilton 6B tip, my Ateco 808 and the Wilton 1M.
• USE AN ICE CREAM OR COOKIE SCOOP: If you don’t have piping tips or don’t have time to pipe frosting on, use an ice cream scoop or even a smaller cookie scoop full of frosting on top! I see this style more and more in bakeries these days and love it!

HOW TO DOUBLE THE RECIPE

This recipe makes 8 cupcakes, but can easily be doubled. I settled on 8 for now since we are still somewhat in social distancing days and most people don’t have a need for 16 or 18 cupcakes. That said, it’s perfectly easy to double the amount. There is an option to double the recipe below or just use the recipe from my Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes.

These Strawberry Filled Cupcakes are so pretty and easy to make. They’re baked with whole strawberries in the centers and topped with the prettiest, freshest strawberry buttercream! They’re fun to make and even more fun to eat!

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