Strawberry Cream Cheese Cupcakes

Strawberry cream cheese cupcakes made from scratch with real strawberries and zero food coloring are perfect for Valentine’s Day, birthday parties, and baby showers. Made with both fresh and freeze-dried strawberries, they are full of strawberry flavor.

I’ll give you variations and substitutions where I can, plus helpful tips and tricks for success. Read on for this info as well as the recipe. If you’d like to skip straight to the recipe, use the jump to recipe button at the top of the post.

You may also be interested in my devil’s food cupcakes and my caramel apple cupcake recipes. For ease of browsing, you can find all of my cupcake recipes in one place.

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Strawberry cream cheese cupcakes

Topped with strawberry cream cheese frosting, these fluffy pink cupcakes are packed with strawberry flavor.

Making these strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese icing took three attempts. I don’t mind telling you the first try was not at all what I was going for and thus declared a failure. A delicious failure, but the texture was all wrong.

The second crack at it yielded a much closer result, and I thought it was good enough, but who really wants a cupcake that’s just “good enough”?

So, I set out the ingredients one more time to make the perfect strawberry cream cheese cupcakes with real strawberry flavor, not just cupcakes with strawberries in them. I also wanted them to be a beautiful pink color, but not artificial. This is harder than you might think. Using freeze-dried strawberries did the trick beautifully.

What you need to know

The light pink color comes from freeze-dried strawberries as well as fresh strawberries, not food coloring, so they are perfect for those looking for a strawberry cupcake from scratch with no artificial coloring or dye.

I put the freeze-dried strawberries into a mini food processor and ground them up into a powder. That powder turned the cupcake batter a beautiful pink color without having to use food coloring.

The cream cheese makes the cupcakes taste a little like strawberry cheesecake, and it is delicious. The crumb is a tiny bit denser than the average cupcake, but I don’t mind that.

Ingredients

Strawberry cheesecake cupcakes are a rich and decadent treat for any occasion.

• All purpose flour and cake flour – A combination gives the cupcakes structure, but the lower protein in cake flour makes them a bit more tender.
  • Substitutions: You can use all regular all purpose flour instead of the combination, but the texture won’t be quite as tender.
• Baking powder – This is a leavener that makes the cupcakes rise.
• Egg – Eggs provide moisture and stability in baked goods.
• Salt – All baked goods need salt for balance.
• Vanilla – A splash of vanilla gives the cupcakes great flavor.
• Butter – Use unsalted butter to control the amount of salt in the recipe.
• Freeze-dried strawberries – A one ounce bag will give you almost exactly what you need for the recipe.
• Fresh strawberries – A few fresh strawberries are diced and added to the batter before baking.
• Sugar – With only 2/3 cup of sugar in the whole batch, these cupcakes are not overly sweet.
• Cream cheese – I use full-fat cream cheese.
• Milk – Whole milk is my preference, but 2% would also be fine. Please do not use skim.

How to make

Here’s a quick summary of how to make strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Please see the recipe card at the bottom of this post for the full recipe. 

1. Prep – Preheat oven to 350°F // 180°C. Grind freeze-dried strawberries into a powder.
2. Make cupcake batter.
3. Fill – In order to keep the strawberry cheesecake cupcakes from overflowing, fill them only two-thirds full. I also use a scoop to ensure that each one has the same amount.
4. Bake for 18 minutes, then cool completely.

You can top these delightfully pink cupcakes with any frosting or icing that you like. Strawberry cream cheese frosting goes perfectly with them, but honestly, any frosting or no frosting at all, you can’t go wrong.

Strawberry cream cheese cupcakes FAQ’s

Variations and substitutions

• Raspberry – Swap out freeze-dried strawberries for freeze-dried raspberries. This variation is also delicious.

Serving suggestions

These would be the perfect simple gender reveal cupcakes for a baby shower or strawberry birthday cupcakes for any age.

Valentine’s Day would also be a great occasion to serve these fluffy pink beauties. Spring holidays like Easter or Mother’s day would also be a perfect time for these sweet pink treats.

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More strawberry recipes we love

• strawberry cream cheese icing
• strawberry daiquiris
• strawberry limeade
• strawberry key lime jam

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