Happy Valentine’s Day ya’ll! To change up things, I made these Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes!

I must admit that I’m pretty bad at Valentine’s Day, mostly because I suck at following directions. Every year, Betsy asks for one thing: Chocolate Covered Strawberries from the store. Anything else is fine, but that’s what she really wants. Not roses or rings. Strawberries. SO, I’m not really following directions with these, but I find these cupcakes to be delicious.

Love yourself, first right?!

Of course, I’ll make sure my wife gets her traditional chocolate-covered strawberries but who wouldn’t also want to try one of these cupcakes with strawberries inside?!

Personally, my heart will be with these cupcakes, because they were amazing.

The tricks to making them work are as follows:

  1. Don’t overcook or overfill the cupcakes.
  2. Find the ripest strawberries you can find and slice them before snuggling them into the cupcakes so they are easier to bite.
  3. Go heavy on the frosting. It’ll look like too much but there’s a strawberry under there to lighten it up.

Give these to anyone you like who you want to like you.

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes

4.15 from 7 votes
Author: Nick Evans
Servings: 12 cupcakes
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Finishing Time: 45 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Rich and decadent chocolate cupcakes with a hidden ripe strawberry inside! A fun take on the Valentine’s Day classic. YUM.

Ingredients 

Cupcake base:

  • ¾ cup all-purpose flour
  • ½ cup cocoa powder
  • ¾ teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 2 large eggs
  • ½ cup sugar
  • ¼ cup brown sugar
  • cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
  • 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ½ cup whole milk
  • 12 ripe strawberries

Frosting:

  • 1 cup unsalted butter, 2 sticks
  • ¾ cup cocoa powder
  • 1 tablespoon meringue powder, opt.
  • 3-4 cups powdered sugar
  • ¼ cup milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line a cupcake pan with liners. In a large bowl, whisk together dry ingredients for cupcakes except the sugar. (Flour, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder, salt).
  • In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, sugars, vanilla and melted butter.
  • Add half of the wet stuff to the dry stuff, followed by the milk, then add the last of the wet ingredients and whisk until just combined. The batter will be pretty loose.
  • Pour batter into 12 cupcake liners until it’s about halfway filled. Do not overfill!
  • Bake cupcakes for 18-20 minutes at 350 degrees F. A tester should come out clean from the center of the cupcakes. Let cupcakes cool completely before frosting.
  • For frosting, add butter and cocoa powder to mixing bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Beat until very smooth, about 3-4 minutes. Add vanilla and then start adding the powdered sugar in one cup batches alternating with 1 tablespoon of milk. After 3-4 cups of powdered sugar, the frosting should be soft, but hold it’s shape well. If it seems very stiff, add in more milk.
  • To finish cupcakes, wash strawberries and dry them very well. Slice off stems and slice strawberries vertically a few times. Then press into a cupcake right in the center so the stem part of the strawberry is in the middle of the cupcake.
  • Use a medium to large piping tip to pipe chocolate frosting around the strawberries. Optionally, garnish with coarse sugar.
  • Cupcakes are fine for a few hours at room temperature or store overnight in the fridge. They are best at room temperature though.

Video

Notes

Chocolate cupcake base inspired by a Sally’s Baking Addiction recipe.

Nutrition

Serving: 1cupcake | Calories: 312kcal | Carbohydrates: 59g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 23g | Saturated Fat: 14g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 6g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 83mg | Sodium: 143mg | Potassium: 210mg | Fiber: 4g | Sugar: 16g | Vitamin A: 696IU | Vitamin C: 7mg | Calcium: 62mg | Iron: 2mg
Course: Desserts
Cuisine: American

Did you make this recipe?

Tag @crunchtimekitchen

Making the Cupcakes

This is a simple chocolate cupcake recipe that doesn’t require a mixer!

Whisk together the dry stuff, minus the sugars.

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes batter
Basics.

Whisk together the eggs, sugars, vanilla, and melted butter separately. Then add half of that to the dry stuff, followed by the milk, and then rest of the wet stuff. Whisk it until it’s just combined. It’ll be pretty wet.

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes
Wet batter

Pour the batter into lined cupcakes. Try to only fill halfway full. If I’m being honest, I overfilled these a bit which is why they sunk a bit when I pulled them out of the oven. For our purposes (stuffing them with strawberries) it wasn’t a concern.

Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes
In the cups.

After 18-20 minutes at 350 degrees F. your cupcakes should be done. Be sure to let them cool completely before continuing.

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes
Not perfect, but good enough.

Frosting for Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes

The frosting for these is simple but SO delicious. Mix the cocoa powder and butter first and then add the vanilla.

My little frosting secret these days is to add 1 tablespoon of meringue powder which makes the frosting really stable.

When you start to add the powdered sugar, alternate with 1 cup of sugar and 1 tablespoon of milk. The resulting buttercream will be soft, but easily hold its shape when piped.

Frosting for Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes
That frosting though.

Then you need some strawberries! Do your best to find nice ripe ones!

Ripe strawberries: Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes
The best I could find…

Most importantly, before you stick these in the cupcake, slice them vertically a few times so that when you take a bite of the cupcake, you don’t take the whole strawberry out. Just chop it up a bit and then place it on the cupcake and press it into the cake.

Then frost away! I like to use a medium Wilton piping tip for smooth decoration.

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes
Slice the berries!

I did a good thing!

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes
BOOM.

I added a little coarse sugar to the top of my cupcakes, but that’s optional for sure.

I just love how you bite into these and are expecting a huge mouthful of frosting only to be greeted with a light and fresh berry! As you might guess, the flavors are perfect together and the combo of fresh berry, rich cake, and chocolate frosting is pretty much the best.

Make ’em for your lover or just your damn self.

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes

Here are a few other great cupcakes recipes!