With rich strawberry flavor from the top to the bottom, these moist and fluffy vegan cupcakes are our new favourite! Just perfect for picnics, afternoon tea, or casual dessert – you’ll love them as same as vegan strawberry shortcake!
Vegan Strawberry Cupcakes
Dairy free and no egg cupcakes are surprisingly quick to make. Made from scratch with real strawberry puree, these fresh strawberry cupcakes are delicious. Top them off with strawberry butter cream, filled with real strawberries! Divine!
Say good-bye to artificially flavoured shop-bought strawberry cupcakes with these homemade strawberry cupcakes!
About these Strawberry Vegan Cupcakes
I just love strawberries, and I love cupcakes, so I had to make cupcakes with fresh strawberries in them. I set out to come up with the best strawberry cupcake recipe ever!
And, it had to be cupcakes with fresh strawberries on top, include cupcake batter with real strawberries, and have butter cream frosting with real strawberry taste.
I found that infusing a strawberry reduction into the batter was going to be the secret to success. Sally's Baking Addiction does this for strawberry cake. I tested this for these strawberry vegan cupcakes, and it worked perfectly! Vegan strawberry cupcake deliciousness!
The best thing is that it’s really not complicated at all.
I had to have that real strawberry flavor in the cupcake butter frosting as well. My first effort, using the strawberry puree, did not work out so well. The frosting became too soft and was difficult to whip.
So, I tried freeze dried strawberry powder for frosting. Since it's dried and powdered, without liquid, the butter frosting maintains it’s firmness, and is easy to whip. It worked out really well. Freeze-dried strawberries are available at Trader Joe's, iHerb or Amazon.
Ingredients for strawberry and cream cupcakes
The ingredients of this recipe will fill up 15 regular size cupcake/muffin cups.
Strawberries: Use ripe and juicy fresh strawberries as much as you can. If they have fresh green leaves, that's a good sign they are fresh. Avoid dried or overly soften ones. Look for bright and shinny red strawberries.
Granulated sugar: I use beet granulated sugar. Unwashed cane sugar works but granulated sugar is suitable for this recipe because it melts quickly into other ingredients.
Canola Oil: It's the secret weapon to make the no dairy and eggless cupcakes moist and yet fluffy.
Cake Flour: This easy strawberry cupcake recipe uses cake flour. It works out fluffy and smooth. If you only have all purpose flour, no problem. Take one tablespoon of all purpose flour out and add the same amount of corn starch. The texture becomes similar to cake flour.
How to Make Strawberry Cupcakes
Strawberry Reduction
I really enjoy making strawberry reduction. It fills the kitchen with that sweet, ever so slightly tart aroma. Simply throw some strawberries into a food processor, and blend, Transfer into a pan and reduce them into less than half. Start with low heat first then medium. That's it!
If you do not have a food processor, puree the strawberries with a fork while they’re heating in the pan.
Making Buttermilk
Add apple cider vinegar into soy milk and combine them with a whisk. This is your butter milk.
Mixing dry and wet ingredients
There are two things you need to pay attention to:
- Integrate the dry ingredients well with the wet ingredients - Make sure the dry ingredients are not sticking on the bottom of the mixing bowl. Use a 'spatula' to scoop up all the dry ingredients from the bottom and mix it in. Just do this one time. Then continue mixing with a whisk
- Avoid over mixing - Just gently mix all the ingredients together until the batter is even and all of the flour is integrated. Over mixing creates gluten and that makes the cupcakes hard after cooled down. The cupcakes also don't rise if over mixed.
Red food colouring - I added a drop of red food colouring to really bring out the colour. Beet powder also works.
Baking the cupcakes
Do not overfill - Fill cupcake liners only ⅔ full. This way you can avoid the cupcakes rising too far beyond the cupcake liners. When this happens, they may sink in the middle and tend to stick to the pan – not so pretty when removed.
Keep the baked cupcakes in the plate for 2 minutes and transfer into a cooling rack. After the cupcakes are completed cooled down, pipe on vegan strawberry butter cream frosting. Serve immediately! Or enjoy frosting after the cupcakes completely cooled down.
Tips for the best Vegan Strawberry Cupcakes
I love making cupcakes, and they’re really not complicated. To make them moist yet fluffy:
- Measure ingredients properly and don't substitute
- Keep the ingredients at room temperature
Also,
- Avoid over mixing the batter as it creates extra gluten and that prevents the cupcakes from rising. They can be become hard once they’ve cooled down (no one needs cupcake door stops.) So, avoid over mixing.
- Don’t be tempted to open the oven - The temperature of the oven gets lowered before the structure is made. Then the cupcakes don't rise and may come out hard.
- Removing cupcakes - Take out baked cupcakes from the cupcake/muffin cups once they are cooled down. It takes about 2 minutes after they are removed from the oven.
How to store vegan cupcakes
These strawberry cupcakes can be kept moist and fluffy for up to 3 days. Once they are cooled down, transfer into an airtight container. If the weather is not hot, leave the container in the room. Otherwise, leave it in the fridge.
If you keep in the freezer, cover up the cupcakes with baking paper. Then transfer them into a ziploc bag. These strawberry cupcakes can last for 3 months in the freezer. Just take them out and leave them overnight in the refrigerator to defrost.
More vegan strawberry dessert:
Vega Strawberry Muffins
Vegan Strawberry Shortcakes
Vegan Strawberry Frosting
Vegan Strawberry Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 1 lb strawberry (2 packets and about 1kg, half for puree and half for decoration)
Dry Ingredients
- 1⅓ cup cake flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 cup sugar (200g)
Wet Ingredients
- ¼ cup canola oil (or any vegetable oil)
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- red food colouring (optional)
Butter Milk
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
- ¾ cup soy milk (or any plant based milk)
Instructions
Preparation
- Strawberry Reduction - Puree ½ lb of strawberries in a food processor blender. Blend until it’s smooth. It should yield 1 cup of puree. Transfer the puree into a small pan and reduce into ¼ cup by heating up. Start with the low heat first. Once the liquid starts coming out of the strawberries, bring it up to medium heat. Stir occasionally. Use a fork to smooth over the fruit if you do not have a food processor. It takes about 10 minutes. Once reduced, allow it to cool down completely. Set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 340°F (171°C). Place cupcake liners on a muffin pan.
- Mix soy milk and apple cider vinegar and leave it for 5 minute. This is your butter milk. Set aside.
Cupcake Batter
- Combine dry ingredients with a whisk in a mixing bowl. Make a little space in center and add wet ingredients and reduced strawberry puree. Add a drop of food colouring (optional).
- Combine both dry and wet ingredients with a whisk or a hand mixer. Make sure the dry ingredients do not stick on the bottom. Use a spatula and scoop up all the dry ingredients from the bottom to the top. Do this once not many. If you use a hand mixer or blender, make sure to scoop up dry ingredients from the bottom of the mixing bowl with a spatula. Avoid over mixing the cupcake batter.
Baking
- Transfer the batter into liners in the muffin cups. Fill it only about ⅔ full. This way you can avoid overflowing. Bake the cupcakes in the preheated oven for 20 to 22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Cool & Frosting
- Remove the cupcake/muffin pan from oven. After 2 minutes, remove the cupcakes from the pan, leave on cooling rack. Let the cupcakes cool down completely, and pipe on strawberry butter cream frosting and strawberries on top of each cupcakes. Serve!
Recipe Notes:
- Measure ingredients properly and don't substitute ingredients
- Keep the ingredients at room temperature
- Avoid over mixing ingredients
- Avoid cupcake over flowing. Fill cupcake liners with the cupcake batter only ⅔ full.
- Keep the temperature even and do not open the oven while baking.
- Remove cupcakes - Take out baked cupcakes from the cupcake/muffin cups once they are removed from the oven and have cooled down. It takes about 2 minutes.
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