White Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes

These white chocolate strawberry cupcakes are flavored with real, fresh strawberries and no artificial flavoring. The strawberry cupcakes are soft and moist, with a white chocolate ganache filling. They are then topped with a strawberry buttercream that really amps up the strawberry flavor and color.

These strawberry cupcakes are great on their own and would make a great treat any time of the year. The addition of the white chocolate ganache filling and white chocolate dipped strawberries on top takes the flavor over the top and are perfect for Valentine’s Day. Filled cupcakes are a little more work, but they come with an opposite but complementary flavor that pairs so well with the flavors of the cupcakes. This is what makes my hot chocolate cupcakes so popular too, with their marshmallow filling.

The other addition that adds a huge pop of strawberry flavor and a beautiful color is the strawberry buttercream frosting on top. The flavor and color here is from freeze-dried strawberries, which adds a concentrated strawberry flavor without the extra liquid from fresh strawberries or artificial flavoring. This is the same strawberry frosting I use on my Lofthouse style soft Valentine’s Day sugar cookies.

The chocolate dipped strawberry garnish makes these white chocolate strawberry cupcakes a great option for Valentine’s Day, but these cupcakes are perfect any time of the year. The strawberry cupcakes would also be perfect for holidays like Easter or Mother’s Day, or a springtime cupcake when strawberries are at their peak. The white chocolate can also easily be swapped with any preferred chocolate in both the ganache and the garnish.

Jump to:

• 🥘 Ingredients for White Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes
• 🔪 How to Make White Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes
• 📖 Recipe Variations
• 🧁 Tips for Frosting Cupcakes
• 💭 Frequently Asked Questions
• 🍽 Recommended Equipment
• ❄️ Storing & Making Cupcakes Ahead of Time
• 📋 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

🥘 Ingredients for White Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes

The strawberry cupcake itself is made from the same base recipe I use in most of my cupcakes, like my hugely popular Meyer lemon cupcakes. Most of the ingredients you’ll probably have on hand already, other than strawberries, freeze-dried strawberries, and white chocolate.

Strawberry Cupcakes

Flour – As in most of my cupcake recipes, I prefer using cake flour here. I find it gives the cupcakes a softer, more tender crumb. All-purpose flour would be fine as well if that’s all you have.

Leaveners – Use both baking powder and baking soda here. The baking soda will react to the sour cream and strawberries.

Fat – Use a combination of unsalted butter and vegetable oil. I like the flavor butter adds, but the oil keeps the cupcakes moist for longer than butter alone.

Sugar – White, granulated sugar works fine here alone.

Sour Cream – Use full fat sour cream here. I like to use sour cream in cupcakes instead of milk. It adds moisture and tanginess without adding too much liquid. Sour cream also helps to tenderize the cupcake batter.

Vanilla – Add vanilla extract to balance and enhance the flavors in the cupcakes.

Eggs – As in most of my cupcake recipes, I like to use one whole egg and one egg yolk. This keeps the strawberry cupcake crumb tender and moist without being too cakey.

Strawberries – Can’t have strawberry cupcakes without some strawberries. Look for a 1-pound container with nice looking, fresh, medium sized strawberries. You’ll only need about a half pound, so count out 12 of the nicer looking strawberries for garnish. If you have enough for 12 strawberries that can be dipped, with 12+ strawberries remaining, you’re good. If the container doesn’t have enough to split in half, you may have to skip the garnish, use less than 12, or you could garnish with half strawberries instead.

White Chocolate Ganache

Chocolate – For the best results, look for a decent quality white chocolate baking bar. You’ll need about 6-ounces for the ganache, so get two 4-ounce baking bars. Reserve the remaining 2-ounces for dipping strawberries, which should be just enough for 12 medium strawberries.

Cream – Use heavy cream for making ganache. You want the higher fat content found in heavy whipping cream to properly emulsify the cream and chocolate into a ganache.

Strawberry Buttercream

Butter – Use softened unsalted butter for the buttercream. I like to add a pinch of salt later, but I find salted butter as the base to be a bit too salty in the final buttercream.

Sugar – A good amount of powdered sugar added to the butter creates the buttercream structure and flavor.

Strawberries – You can use fresh strawberries instead, but I highly recommend freeze-dried strawberries in buttercream frostings. They add a ton of concentrated flavor and color without any additional liquid. Strawberries can vary a lot in how much liquid they release when blended, and even strained, they can add too much liquid and make the buttercream break or weep.

One cup of powder from freeze-dried strawberries can be made from one standard container, usually sold in 25-28 grams. If the package is larger, weight out 25g worth. You can usually find these in most grocery stores where they sell other dried fruits like raisins, or online from the link above.

Vanilla – As usual, vanilla extract helps to balance and enhance the strawberry flavor here.

Black Pepper – Optional, and not a typo. Seriously, don’t knock it until you try it. A little bit of ground black pepper really enhances strawberry flavor and adds just a bit of pepperiness.

Cream – Unlike the ganache, you can use any milk or cream here, including non-dairy versions. I highly recommend heavy cream for the best flavor and texture, however. Next best option would be whole milk.

🔪 How to Make White Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes

There are multiple steps in this white chocolate strawberry cupcake recipe, but you can work on each component while something else is baking or cooling. You can also split things up over two days by making some parts ahead of time and putting it all together the next day.

Start by chopping and reducing the fresh strawberries. Cooking the strawberries down gives the cupcakes a much stronger strawberry flavor because it’s reduced and concentrated. If you don’t have a food processor, you can slice the strawberries and then run your knife through them multiple times until reduced to finely diced pieces and pulp. For the freeze-dried strawberries you can try a blender or do in batches in a spice or coffee grinder.

Strawberry Cupcakes

Trim and slice a half pound of fresh strawberries, then add to a food processor and blend until reduced to small pieces and pulp. Add everything to a small saucepan set over medium-low to low heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until reduced to roughly a ¼ cup. This will take around 20 minutes, but don’t try to speed things up by cooking at a higher temperature or you can burn the strawberries.

Once reduced, transfer the strawberry puree to a heatproof bowl or glass measuring cup and allow to cool before using. You can speed this up by tossing, uncovered, into the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes. It doesn’t need to be cold, just not hot.

While the strawberry reduction cools, preheat your oven to 350°F / 180°C and line a 12-count muffin tin with cupcake liners and set it aside.

In a mixing bowl, add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk together and set it aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, or in a large mixing bowl with a hand mixer, add the butter and sugar and mix on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.

Now add the oil, vanilla extract, sour cream, and cooled strawberry reduction. Mix on medium low speed until fully combined. Add the egg and egg yolk, one at a time, until no visible streaks remain.

Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in 2-3 batches. Mix on low speed, slowly increasing the speed as the flour is incorporated into the batter. Continue adding the rest of the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.

Pour or scoop the batter into the cupcake liners until they’re roughly ⅔rds full, trying to keep all the liners equally filled. Place onto the center rack of the oven and bake for 17-22 minutes, until a toothpick comes out mostly clean. Allow them to cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes, and then move to a cooling rack until cooled completely.

Ganache Filling

While the cupcakes are cooking, start making the white chocolate ganache.

Coarsely chop 1 ½ white chocolate bars, or 6-ounces, and set into a heatproof bowl.

Pour a little more than ⅓ cup of heavy cream, or 3-ounces, into a small saucepan over medium low heat. Bring it to a simmer, do not boil, and then pour over the chopped chocolate. Let it sit, undisturbed, for 3-5 minutes.

Once rested, whisk together until emulsified. It should be thickened but pourable and creamy. Let it cool for a few minutes at room temperature, then place in the refrigerator, uncovered, until set and thickened. This should take about 45 minutes to an hour. When it’s set, it should be tacky and scoopable, but no longer pourable.

Strawberry Buttercream

While the ganache sets and the cupcakes cool, you can make the strawberry buttercream.

Start by adding the freeze-dried strawberries to a food processor. Pulse or blend at high speed until reduced to a find powder. If it has an open feeding tube, I recommend covering it with your hand or a towel, so you don’t have strawberry dust everywhere.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large mixing bowl with a hand mixer, add the butter and some of the powdered sugar (about a cup). Mix slowly, then increase to medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.

Now add the rest of the powdered sugar and strawberry powder in batches, mixing slowly until incorporated and slowly increase the speed. You can switch to the whisk attachment at this point or stick with the paddle. Add the vanilla extract and black pepper with a pinch of salt and mix on medium speed until fully combined.

Finally, add the heavy cream and mix on low speed until combined, then turn the speed up to high for a minute or two. Finish mixing at high speed until fluffy and a soft texture for piping.

Filling & Decorating

Once cooled completely, you can fill and decorate the cupcakes.

Remove some of the center of the cupcakes with a cupcake corer or use a paring knife. If using a paring knife, cut into the cupcake about a ¼” from the edge at a 45° angle. Cut around the outer edge until you make a circle, then remove the cone shaped piece and reserve some of the top.

Spoon or scoop about a tablespoon or so of the white chocolate ganache into the cupcake and replace the removed top.

Now add the buttercream into a piping bag and decorate the tops. You have plenty of options here. For more information, read below on “Tips for Frosting Cupcakes.” For reference, I made rosettes here with a 2D and 6B piping tip. If you have it, I’d recommend a 1M tip over the 2D though, and an 8B also works.

For the chocolate dipped strawberries, melt the reserved 2-ounces of white chocolate. You can do this over a double-broiler or simply use a microwave. Coarsely chop the white chocolate and heat in the microwave for 30 seconds. Heat again for 15-20 seconds until the chocolate is soft. Stir or whisk until nice and smooth.

Let it cool for a minute or two and then dip and spin the strawberries through the chocolate. Set them on a plate or a ¼ sheet pan and then place into the refrigerator until set, about an hour. This can be done while making the ganache, ahead of time, or within an hour of when you plan on serving the cupcakes.

📖 Recipe Variations

If you love white chocolate and strawberries, these white chocolate strawberry cupcakes from scratch are awesome as they are. If you want to mix things up with different ingredients or options, I’ll list a few popular choices here.

Chocolate

Chocolate Ganache – If you’re not a fan of white chocolate, feel free to swap it with semi-sweet, dark, or milk chocolate instead. Keep the measurements the same and simply change the kind of chocolate 1:1 for the white chocolate. Same with the chocolate used for dipping the strawberries.

Strawberry Chocolate Cupcakes – If you want to make chocolate cupcakes with this recipe, I recommend switching to 1 cup of all-purpose flour instead of the cake flour and add ⅓ cup of Dutch-processed cocoa powder. The rest of the ingredients can remain the same.

Easy White Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes – If you hate the idea of making a ganache, coring cupcakes, and adding a filling, you can make an easy switch. Make the cupcake batter up until the point of adding to the cupcake liners to bake. Before finishing, fold in ¾ to 1 cup of white chocolate chips or coarsely chopped white chocolate bars. The flavor will be similar with a different texture. Feel free to skip dipping the strawberries as well and just garnish with plain strawberries.

Fillings

Fresh Strawberry Filling – Instead of a ganache filling, you can make the cupcakes without the strawberries in the batter and fill them with strawberries instead. Coarsely chop the half pound of strawberries and place in a small saucepan over medium high heat. Add about 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar and bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer.

Once simmering, add a ½ teaspoon of lemon juice, and a ½ teaspoon of corn starch and simmer for 5-6 minutes until thickened. Cool and add to the cupcakes in place of the ganache.

Strawberry Buttercream Filling – Cut the buttercream recipe down to about a ¼ and fill the cupcakes with the buttercream instead of topping them with it. If doing this, I’d recommend my chocolate frosting from my hot cocoa cupcakes, or a white chocolate buttercream for topping.

Strawberry White Chocolate Ganache – For another punch of strawberry flavor, add some to the ganache filling. Simply grab a tablespoon of strawberry powder from the buttercream ingredients and add it to the ganache. Sprinkle it over the chopped chocolate before adding the hot cream. This can be done with any preferred chocolate you make the ganache with also.

Strawberries

Frozen Strawberries – If you want or need to use frozen strawberries, you can. Use the same amount called for in the recipe, thawing them overnight in the fridge if you need to puree them first. Reduce on the stovetop as called for in the recipe. They may need a little more time to reduce if they release a lot of liquid though. You’ll want fresh strawberries if you wish to dip in chocolate and decorate, however.

Strawberry Jam – If you don’t want to deal with fresh or frozen strawberries and make a reduction, you can also use strawberry jam or preserves. Fold in ¼ cup or so when making the batter. The flavor will still be good, but not as pronounced as it is when making a fresh strawberry reduction. Again, you’ll need fresh strawberries if you want to dip and decorate the tops.

🧁 Tips for Frosting Cupcakes

Decorating cupcakes is a very personal preference that depends on your skill level and what you’re comfortable doing. Like making homemade pie crust, piping frosting can be intimidating to some home cooks, and that’s perfectly alright. Even if you’re comfortable with piping, you may not have a huge inventory of various piping tips. One thing I’ll say with cupcakes though, larger tips tend to look better.

If you don’t like piping frosting, or just don’t want to invest in tips and bags, you can simply add the frosting with a butterknife or offset spatula. If you go this route, you can probably cut the frosting recipe in half as well.

For cupcakes with tall frosting decorations, start piping on the outside and make a circle going inward, then upward, and circle again. This will give you a nice height and about 3 layers tall counting the point. I like piping tips such as Wilton's 2D, 1M, 4B, 6B and 8B for this.

To make rosettes, decorate in reverse from above. Start in the center of the cupcake at a 90° angle and pipe a thick amount in the middle, then slowly move in a spiral until you reach the outer edge of the cupcake. This creates a rose or flower-like shape on top of the cupcake but won’t be as tall as the previous method. For this method I like the same tips, but prefer 1M, 6B, or 8B.

One note on the difference between the 2D and 1M tips. They make similar designs, but the 1M is considered an open star tip. If your frosting contains solids like fresh fruit or freeze-dried fruit, use the 1M instead. The 2D has a closed shape and solids will get stuck in the teeth.

💭 Frequently Asked Questions

🍽 Recommended Equipment

While you don’t need to have fancy equipment to make these white chocolate strawberry cupcakes, there’s a few items I want to mention and recommend below.

Food Processor – While you can make these cupcakes without one, a food processor makes things much easier when dealing with the strawberries and freeze-dried strawberries. It’s an investment and takes up space like a stand mixer, but there’s just a lot of things a regular blender isn’t good at doing.

Corer – While you can just use a good paring knife to core out cupcakes for filling, it’s definitely more time consuming. I like this cupcake corer from Norpro because it comes with two size cutters, does a good job of cutting and removing the core, and it’s inexpensive.

Piping Tips – As mentioned in the directions, I used both a Wilton 2D large drop flower piping tip and a Wilton 6B open star piping tip when decorating these. If you have one, I’d also recommend the Wilton 1M open star tip over the 2D. No matter how well you think you turned the freeze-dried strawberries into a powder, one tiny piece can clog the 2D and you’ll have to start over. I do find larger tips work better than small ones on cupcakes. Don’t forget some 12″ pastry bags also.

❄️ Storing & Making Cupcakes Ahead of Time

Once cooled and decorated, strawberry white chocolate cupcakes can be placed in an airtight container and stored at room temperature for 3-4 days just fine. Move to the refrigerator for longer-term storage, up to a week, but they do dry out faster when refrigerated so I don’t recommend this method. If you decorated with the white chocolate dipped strawberries, you’ll need to remove those and store them refrigerated, however, as the chocolate isn’t tempered, and the strawberries will go bad very quickly at room temperature.

If you’re making cupcakes ahead of time or need to store them for longer than a week, freezing is a good option. I prefer this to refrigerating cupcakes as freezing and then thawing keeps them tasing fresher than being refrigerated.

Once completely cooled, wrap each undecorated cupcake in plastic wrap. Place in a gallon freezer bag or airtight container and freeze for up to 3 months. Leave at room temperature to thaw for 30 minutes to an hour and decorate as normal.

While you can freeze frosted cupcakes, I don’t recommend it as it takes up more room and not all frostings do as well frozen. With that said, if you want to freeze frosted cupcakes, move them to the freezer uncovered for a few hours to freeze the frosting. Once frozen, wrap individually as above, and freeze for up to 3 months. When thawing decorated cupcakes, remove the plastic wrapping right away and let them thaw uncovered.

If you want to make these ahead of time, or split things into two days, you can. You can make the strawberry reduction, the white chocolate ganache, and/or the strawberry buttercream 1-2 days before making the cupcakes. Let the strawberry reduction and ganache cool completely, then store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

If you make the buttercream ahead of time and refrigerate it, you may need to loosen it up some before piping. When ready to decorate, let the buttercream sit at room temperature for 15-20 minutes, then whip it again to make it soft and fluffy again. If it still feels a bit stiff, add some more cream, a teaspoon at a time until it feels soft enough to pipe.

📋 Recipe