Fresh Strawberry Buttercream Cupcakes
These Fresh Strawberry Buttercream Cupcakes are the perfect dessert for a bridal shower or ladies’ night, and are a nice, lighter alternative to a dense chocolate cake. This is one of my favorite cupcakes!
Have you noticed all the fresh strawberries flooding the grocery stores over the past few weeks?
I’ve been buying so many cartons that I’m pretty sure I have fully supported at least one farm with my purchases alone. Before the strawberry season comes to an end *tear,* you need to make these cupcakes. Yes, you do.
Pete and I recently had a couple friends over for dinner for the very first time, and of course, I wanted to impress them with a knockout dessert. I sat down and scrolled through the dessert section of my recipe index (see? I use this blog just as much as you do), but I realized what I most wanted to make I had never posted here before….white vanilla cupcakes with a real fresh strawberry buttercream.
When it was time to bring out the dessert, I served each person TWO full sized cupcakes…because I knew that only serving one would be insulting. They’re that good. You can’t eat just one. Even when you’re counting calories, or watching what you eat (that would be me).
The secret to this delicious buttercream is actually two secrets. The first is to macerate the strawberries. You do this by cutting up the strawberries and letting them sit with some freshly squeezed lemon juice and a little bit of sugar. This softens the strawberries slightly, and intensifies their flavor as they absorb some of the bright lemon and sweet sugar.
Then you puree the strawberries and lemon juice, transferring them afterward to a strainer to let the excess liquid drain a bit. Then you can spoon the intensified strawberry goodness into your buttercream.
Which brings me to secret #2, which is making a real buttercream. I’m not talking about butter mixed with confectioner’s sugar. That’s not real buttercream.
To make real buttercream, you start with egg yolks and whip them until they’re very pale. Then you take a super hot sugar syrup and whisk it into the pale egg yolks with a mixer, until it gets super light and runny, like this.
Then you beat in the butter a little bit at a time until the buttercream is light and fluffy, and you add in the strawberry puree.
Pipe it onto some vanilla cupcakes (I make these white velvet cupcakes by Rose Levy Beranbaum and they’re incredible. I don’t bother making any other kind of white cupcake because I don’t think it can get better than this).
Top with some halved strawberries to make them look extra pretty. Enjoy!
Fresh Strawberry Buttercream Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 1 dozen vanilla cupcakes
- 1.5 cups chopped fresh strawberries
- 2 tbsp vanilla sugar
- 2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 6 egg yolks
- 1.5 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup water
- 1.5 cups unsalted butter diced
Instructions
- Combine the chopped fresh strawberries with the sugar and lemon juice, and give it a good stir. Let it sit for 15 minutes at room temperature. This is called macerating, and we are softening the strawberries and intensifying their flavor.
- Puree the strawberries in a food processor or blender, taking care to leave some small chunks of strawberry. Pour the mixture in a fine mesh strainer set over a bowl, letting some of the excess liquid drain. Set the drained pureed strawberries aside.
- In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg yolks on high speed for 8 minutes until they are very pale.
- In the meantime, combine the sugar and water in a heavy bottomed saucepan over medium heat, and let the sugar syrup simmer toward the soft ball stage, which is 238 degrees on an instant read thermometer. When both the egg yolks and the sugar syrup are ready, pour the sugar syrup into the mixing bowl (the mixer should still be on high speed), aiming as best as you can to pour between the wire whisk and the side of the bowl. Now, touch the bottom of the bowl. It’s pretty hot, right? Beat the egg yolk sugar mixture until the bowl feels neither hot nor cold (about 5 minutes). The egg yolk sugar mixture will be very runny at this point.
- Turn the mixer down to medium and add two tbsp of the strawberry puree. Add the butter, a couple cubes at a time to the bowl, over the course of 10 minutes. Wait until each installment of butter is absorbed until you add the next batch. Do a final taste and see if you would like to add any more strawberry puree. Pipe or spread your buttercream on your cupcakes, and enjoy!
Nutrition
Nutrition is estimated using a food database and is only intended to be used as a guideline for informational purposes.
80 Comments on “Fresh Strawberry Buttercream Cupcakes”
Can I use canned or frozen fruit?
Hi Kelly, were you planning to use something different than strawberries? You can definitely use canned or frozen, just make sure it’s super well drained, really squeeze and drain out any excess liquid.
Hi can i just ask,, do i use powdered icing sugar or caster sugar ? And also where can i find the recipe for white velvet cupcakes.x
Hi Paula, caster sugar would be the right one here. Here are the cupcakes: https://www.fifteenspatulas.com/white-velvet-cupcakes-with-earl-grey-buttercream/
Do you have a recommendation for a good candy thermometer? My daughters’ birthdays are coming up soon and I’d really like to branch out from the super sweet American buttercream, but I don’t have a candy thermometer to attempt any other kind. (I know. I know! Bad baker, no cookie.)
Hi Brianna, I usually use my Thermapen, which is pretty much the best thermometer you can buy, but it’s not specifically a candy thermometer that lays in the side of the pan. The mainstream candy thermometer (I think made by Taylor) is not rated well, so I have hesitated to buy it. I’ve never seen a well-reviewed candy thermometer around, sadly, so I just measure with my thermapen.
These look reeealy delicious though I guess for all us who are out there and allergic to egg, we’ll just have to stick to the non-real buttercream 😉
would the buttercream work with any other fruit with the lemon squeeze and sugar? im not much of a fan of strawberries,ive got blackberries on hand so i wanted to ask
Hi Mina, yes other fruits would work. With the blackberries though, you may consider cooking them down and straining out the seeds, since they can be rather big sometimes. Enjoy!
So in other words you basically make an Italian butter cream and add the strawberries to it?
Does the butter need to be a room temp or does it need to be cold?
Hi Amanda, it’s cold cubed butter.
Wow, I have made frosting before, but always the butter and confectioner’s sugar kind, with one foray into Swiss Meringue Buttercream. This is AMAZING. I can’t even explain. I had some left over and was spooning it onto graham crackers with my boyfriend, who was raving about it being like a much improved version of dunkaroos haha. He also ate a frosted cupcake and said I shouldn’t bring them to work cuz my coworkers wouldn’t like them and I should just leave them here (I did leave him one, I’m not totally evil). Seriously yummy! I was wondering if you keep these in the fridge after frosting them, I notice the frosting is getting kinda glisten-y and a little shiny, but not runny or anything. And it still tastes fine.
Bookmarked a thousand times over, I assume this would work well with raspberry or blackberry or even blueberry right? I want to try other variations. It never occurred to me to make frosting this way.
Wonderful!!! So happy you both enjoyed this frosting so much. And yes, feel free to experiment with different flavors. Enjoy!
So I posted my original comment at the end of last August. I have made this frosting recipe many times and it is ALWAYS delicious!! I am happy to say it’s a very versatile recipe and I have done blueberry buttercream, cake batter buttercream (with homemade yellow cake mix!) and cookie dough buttercream..and even just plain vanilla. Amazing!!
YAY! I’m really happy to hear that, Carrie. And the buttercreams you have done sound amazing!
Hi Joanne! Your cupcakes look DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😀 Can’t wait to make them! What do you mean by hot sugar syrup? And how do you puree the strawberries? This may sound a little dumb, but I’m pretty young and I love baking, but I’m not an expert!
Hi Taina, no worries about the questions. The hot sugar syrup refers to the sugar you cook to 238 degrees in the instructions. Also, I pureed the strawberries in a food processor. Hope you enjoy the cupcakes, and be sure to use a really accurate thermometer. It’s important to get it right to 238 degrees plus or minus a degree. Enjoy!
Hi Joanne! HELP! I just ginished whipping up the buttercream and its a very watery runny consistency. Is there anything I can do to save my buttercream?
Hi Raizy, hm. I’m sorry to say I think the sugar might not have been cooked to the right stage. Did you use a good thermometer? In the soft ball stage the buttercream should be relatively thick. You might be able to save it by adding more butter or seeing if it firms up in the fridge. Those are my best suggestions, but let me know if you have more details.
Im gonna stick it in the fridge and see what happens. Youre a sweetheart for answering right away! At least the white velvet cupcakes came out good!( I was so depressed about the buttercream, I had to taste the cupcake!- best ive ever had!)
Well, at the very least it sounds like the cupcakes turned out really well!!
Hi, I’d like to try these but don’t know what vanilla sugar is. Where would I find it?
Hi Amy, you can make your own by sticking a scraped out vanilla bean (use the seeds for another recipe) in a canister of sugar and letting it sit for a week or so. And you can definitely just use regular sugar for this recipe and it will turn out nicely!
Hi Joanne!
I was wondering if you could make the cake recipe into a layer cake instead of cupcakes. I realize that the baking time will change if it’s possible, but will there be any bad side effects?
Hi Tori, you sound like an advanced baker. I think this would work well as a layer cake but I’m not sure what the exact time would be since I always make these as cupcakes. If you are able to judge the doneness by eye, you should go ahead and make them in the pan. Enjoy!
Great site! Great recipes! Thanks- from an arm chair gourmet chef and foodie!
Thanks Jen! Welcome and I hope you enjoy the website =)