Chocolate Strawberry Filled Cupcakes

Perfect for Valentine’s Day or any day! Soft Chocolate Strawberry Filled Cupcakes have the perfect amount of strawberry flavor.

Nothing says Happy Valentine’s Day like a cupcake! These homemade cupcakes are dressed up for the holiday of love with strawberry filling and a melt-in-your mouth strawberry frosting.

They’re soft, they’re sweet…they’re delicious!

a set of chocolate cupcakes with strawberry frosting

❤️ Why you’ll love these cupcakes:

  • 100% from scratch
  • delicious chocolate flavor paired with sweet strawberry
  • easy strawberry jam filling
  • perfect for Valentine’s Day

🍫 Easy Homemade Chocolate Cupcakes

This homemade cupcake recipe is 100% foolproof! It’s the perfect recipe to try if you’ve never made a homemade cake. Just follow the instructions exactly.

  • Mix up the wet and dry ingredients separately. It may seem like an extra step, but it’s 100% worth it to get the right texture.
  • This recipe has coffee in it, but you can’t taste it. You can use instant coffee if you don’t have a coffee pot. If for some reason you don’t want to use coffee, use water instead. (But really….try the coffee!)
  • If you don’t have buttermilk, add a teaspoon of vinegar to a measuring cup and fill it the rest of the way with milk. This is a substitute for buttermilk.
  • Fill the muffin cups no more than 2/3 full so that they don’t run over.
  • Don’t open the oven before you think they are done. If you do, then cupcakes may sink.

🍓 Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

Although we have a strawberry frosting with real strawberries and a quick strawberry frosting with jam, we wanted to create a buttercream that had great strawberry flavor and color. And we used freeze-dried strawberries to achieve that!

This buttercream is super easy. Just crush the strawberries into a powder and then continue on with a traditional buttercream method. If you have a stand mixer, it is best to use that for buttercreams so that they whip up nice and fluffy. But a hand held mixer is second best.

piping strawberry frosting on a chocolate cupcake

How to Fill Cupcakes

They sell special tools to fill cupcakes, but there’s really no need for those tools! Here are three simple steps:

  • Use a knife to cut a circle into the top center of the cupcake to create a pocket. Don’t go all the way to the bottom. Keep the hole about ¾” deep.
  • Spoon a teaspoon of strawberry jam into the center to fill the cupcake.
  • Then place the cut piece of cake back on top to seal the cupcake.
how to fill chocolate cupcakes

How do you store these cupcakes?

These chocolate strawberry filled cupcakes would be safe to store at room temperature for up to 24 hours, but after that I’d store in the fridge. Just make sure they are in an airtight container.

Feel free to switch up the fruit with any other freeze-dried fruits you can find. Raspberry is also delicious!!

If you’re looking for a cake, try our chocolate strawberry cake.

half of a filled chocolate cupcake
half of a filled chocolate cupcake

Chocolate Strawberry Filled Cupcakes

4.64 from 11 votes
Perfect for Valentine's Day or any day! Soft Chocolate Strawberry Filled Cupcakes have the perfect amount of strawberry flavor.
Servings 24
Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 18 minutes

Ingredients
 

For the cupcakes:

For the filling:

For the frosting:

  • 1 ½ cups freeze dried strawberries
  • 1 cup salted butter room temperature
  • 4 cups powdered sugar
  • 1 teaspoons vanilla
  • ¼ cup heavy cream plus more if needed for desired consistency

Instructions
 

Make the cupcakes:

  • Prepare cupcake pans with 24 liners. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • Put flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl and whisk well.
  • In a stand mixer, mix the buttermilk, oil, eggs, vanilla together. Slowly add in the mix of dry ingredients while the mixer is on low. Add the coffee and make sure everything is combined. The batter will be very thin.
  • Fill the cupcake cups about ½ to ⅔ full and bake for about 18-21 minutes or until the center of the cupcake springs back when you touch it.
  • Allow the cupcakes to cool on a cooling rack. While the cake is cooling, make the frosting.

Make the frosting:

  • Place the freeze dried strawberries into a food processor and pulse until it makes a fine powder.
  • In a stand mixer bowl, with the mixer on medium speed, whip the butter for 2 minutes until it is almost white in color. Make sure the butter is at room temperature, but not melted.
  • Add in the powdered sugar, strawberry powder, vanilla and cream.
  • Beat on low speed for 3-5 minutes, adding in another tablespoon of milk if the buttercream needs to be thinner for piping.

Assemble the cupcakes:

  • Use a knife to cut a circle into the top center of the cupcake to create a pocket. Don’t go all the way to the bottom. Keep the hole about ¾” deep.
  • Spoon a teaspoon of strawberry jam into the center to fill the cupcake, then place the cut piece of cake back on top to seal the cupcake.
  • Pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes in swirls.
  • Garnish with strawberries and chocolate shavings or curls.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword chocolate cupcakes, strawberry cake, valentines day

Other Cupcake Recipes

If you love cupcakes, try one of our favorites:

About Julie Clark

We are Julie, Maddie, and Kinslee – a mother and daughter team sharing with you the best cakes to satisfy any need or sweet craving that you may have. Welcome to our family’s kitchen!

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