Get ready to tantalize your taste buds with a delightful treat that combines two classic favorites: rich, moist chocolate cupcakes and fresh strawberries sitting in a homemade strawberry cream cheese frosting. This recipe will be your guide to creating these irresistible chocolate covered strawberry cupcakes, perfect for any occasion, from Valentine’s Day to birthday celebrations or simply a sweet indulgence.
The inspiration for these incredible little buggers came from the chocolate-covered strawberries my husband and I have been addicted to lately! While these are basically STRAWBERRY covered chocolate cupcakes, that doesn’t sound as fun haha!
A few weeks ago, I made these Brownies for Valentine’s Day that were so perfect for packing up and taking to work, school, bible study, or any other gathering for Valentine’s Day.
What we love about these cupcakes
Do not be intimidated by the amount of ingredients! It’s not as bad as it looks and if you really wanna cut down on the amount of shopping, go ahead and buy a chocolate boxed cake mix or some canned strawberry frosting but I am telling you, this recipe is worth the effort. You will have guests so impressed with the complex flavor of these chocolate covered strawberry cupcakes.
I wanna be totally honest; this was the first recipe where I blended freeze-dried fruit to a powder to add for color and flavor. I am genuinely impressed by how amazing it worked. While I am in love with colored frosting, I am not in love with using food dye for everything.
Making these Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes
The Cake
This cupcake recipe is a take-off of Ina Garten’s Chocolate Cake Recipe. It does not even compare to the boxed stuff. There was a time where I preached that homemade was just as good as boxed. Boy was I wrong. This recipe is next level.
Coffee in the batter. It gives the cupcake this rich, deep, dark flavor. The flavor is unbeatable!
There is 1/2 heavy cream and 1/2 milk in this chocolate covered strawberry cupcakes recipe but if you choose to replace that with half and half or buttermilk or even just all whole milk your recipe should be just fine!
Frosting
I’m a sucker for cream cheese frosting. While buttercream frosting would probably go just as well, the cream cheese frosting adds to the depth of flavor.
Real strawberries! So I had seen the trend going around of using real freeze-dried fruit, turning it into a powder, and using it in recipes. Go figure, it works AMAZING! The joy I feel, being able to color and add flavor to my frosting without adding dyes or synthetic flavors, makes me so happy. Trader Joe’s sells the perfect sized bags of freeze-dried fruit and for SUCH a reasonable cost! If you’d prefer to Amazon it, here is a great brand to the sized bag in this recipe.
More recipes with freeze-dried fruit powder to come!
Toppings
Pink, red, or white sprinkles are perfect for topping for these chocolate covered strawberry cupcakes! Here are the kind I used but feel free to get creative with fun sprinkles!
Fresh strawberries add a freshness to these cupcakes that set them apart from others. Just add them before setting them out. If making these many hours before a party, try to add them more last minute so the strawberries are as fresh as possible.
Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes
These cupcakes are special! The cupcake part of these is moist and rich in flavor, unlike any boxed mix on the market. The frosting is creamy and fruity with real strawberries. Complex flavors make this cupcake different and unique, similar to a chocolate-covered strawberry.
Ingredients
Cupcakes
Dry Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
3/4th cup cocoa powder (special dark is the best)
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Wet Ingredients
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup hot coffee
Frosting
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup salted butter, softened
4 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1.2 oz bag of freeze-dried strawberries (such as this bag from Amazon or Trader Joe’s carries them also)
Toppings
Spinkles
Fresh strawberries, sliced for topping
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Spray cupcake pan with non-stick spray or line with cupcake liners.
- Whisk all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients EXCEPT the coffee.
- Slowly add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Once incorporated, add a cup of hot coffee and mix everything until there are no pockets of dry flour left. The batter will be very thin.
- Pour batter into cupcake pan until evenly distributed.
- Bake for 20 mins for regular muffins, 15 mins for mini-muffins. Check that a toothpick comes out clean before removing.
- For the freeze-dried strawberries: Blend strawberries in a blender until fine powder forms.
- Once the cupcakes are cool, whip the frosting ingredients until smooth and light.
- Spoon frosting into piping bag with tip; such as with this set.
- Shake sprinkles on while frosting is still wet but save sliced strawberries for right before serving as they will get wilty after about 4 hours.
- Enjoy!
