Strawberry Cupcakes
Fresh strawberry flavor makes these from scratch cupcakes stand out!
Ingredients
- 2 cups white sugar
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 (3 ounce) package strawberry flavored Jell-O
- 4 large eggs at room temperature
- 2 3/4 cups sifted cake flour
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 cup whole milk, room temperature
- 1/2 cup strawberry puree
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup powderedfreeze dried strawberries (see note below)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line cupcake pan with cupcake liners.
- Beat sugar, butter, & dry strawberry gelatin together in a large bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Combine flour and baking powder in a large bowl; stir into butter mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.
- Blend in strawberry puree, powdered freeze dried strawberries, and vanilla.
- Using a scoop, scoop about 1/2 cup batter into each cupcake liner. Do not fill more than 3/4 full.
- Bake in pre-heated oven 16-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out mostly clean (do not over-bake!). Cool on a wire rack. Once completely cooled, frost with strawberry cream cheese frosting.
- Link for our strawberry cream cheese frosting: https://cookingwithree.com/2026/07/13/cream-cheese-frosting/
- You can make strawberry puree by blending frozen strawberries in a blender or food processor. Ninja makes a really nice mini processor that works great to make the powder and the puree both.
- Sift the cake flour and then measure it. In baking, 1 cup sifted flour means you sift the flour before measuring it. If a recipe says 1 cup flour, sifted it means you measure the flour first and sift it afterwards. Because sifted flour is aerated, it will significantly change the amount of flour used.
- Use cake flour not all-purpose flour. To make 1 cup of cake flour from all-purpose flour, measure 1 cup of all-purpose flour, remove 2 Tablespoons of it, and add 2 Tablespoons of cornstarch. Sift the mixture together 4-5 times to thouroughly combine and aerate the flour, giving it the light, fine texture needed for baking.
- Freeze dried strawberries are sold in the grocery store by the dried fruits like cranberries and raisins. To make into powder run the freeze dried strawberries through a food processor or blender.
- I have been using an all natural strawberry Jel Dessert rather than brand name or generic Jell-O with great results. The flavor is there but the cake is not artificially colored pink.
- I love the “tulip” parchment paper liners for cupcakes. You can get plain brown or printed ones. Some of the soy based inks used to color them will change with heat so keep that in mind when choosing. I have had great luck with the brown, white, and black ones. Red seems to get brighter after baking and blue gets lighter and more muted.
cooking with ree 
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