Strawberry Crunch Cupcakes

These delicious Strawberry Crunch Cupcakes are made with a super moist and flavorful cupcake batter, decadent cream cheese frosting and a crispy crunch topping full of sweet strawberries. It's one of our favorite summer treats along with strawberry brownies, 3-ingredient mango popsicles and s'mores pie.

They make a tasty treat for birthday parties, holidays, Mother's Day and any celebration in between. Mermaid Cupcakes, Shark Attack Cupcakes and Red, White and Blue Cupcakes are also some of our much-loved cupcake recipes for fun holidays and parties.

Our strawberry crunch cupcake batter is made with strawberry syrup, not strawberry extract, to give it a ton of strawberry flavor but to keep it easy since syrup is generally easy to find and not too expensive. Our cream cheese frosting is out of this world, using a mixture of savory butter and sweet cream cheese and powdered sugar, plus vanilla extract to enhance the flavor. And the strawberry crunch topping really puts the icing on the cake!

Ingredients

To make strawberry crunch cupcakes you need:

• Strawberry syrup
• All-purpose flour
• Plain yogurt: either Greek or traditional (homemade yogurt is the best!)
• White sugar
• Unsalted butter
• Baking powder
• Baking soda
• Milk: any type of milk works, including non-dairy milks
• Olive oil: or vegetable oil
• Eggs
• Salt

For the cream cheese frosting and crunch topping you need:

• Unsalted butter
• Cream cheese
• Vanilla extract
• Powdered sugar
• Freeze dried strawberries
• Lemon Oreos: or golden Oreos, animal crackers, graham crackers, vienna fingers or other similar cookie or cracker
• Fresh strawberries

Make The Cupcakes

1. Preheat the oven to 350℉ and line a muffin pan with liners. In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, or using a large bowl and an electric hand mixer, combine 1 cup unsalted butter and 1 ½ cups white sugar. Beat on medium speed until well combined and a chunky mixture has formed. Add 3 large eggs and continue to beat on medium speed until incorporated into the mixture.
2. Slowly add 3 cups all-purpose flour, 2 teaspoon baking powder, ¼ teaspoon baking soda and ½ teaspoon salt. Beat on medium speed until a smooth dough has formed, scraping off ingredients stuck to the bowl with a spatula.
3. Pour in 1 cup milk, ½ cup plain yogurt, ¼ cup olive oil and 6 tablespoon strawberry syrup. Beat on medium speed until combined well and a smooth, thick batter has formed. Note, the batter will be thick and have a scoopable consistency rather than a pourable one.
4. Using an ice cream scoop, fill the muffin cups ⅔ with batter. Bake in the preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting.

Make The Strawberry Crunch Topping & Frosting

1. Add 1 cup freeze dried strawberries and 10 lemon Oreos with the cream removed to a food processor. Grind until a crumbly mixture has formed. Melt 1 tablespoon unsalted butter in the microwave and combine with the crumbled strawberry and Oreo.
2. To a large mixing bowl, add 1 cup unsalted butter and 16 oz cream cheese. Beat on medium speed until combined. Add 2 tablespoon vanilla extract and mix until incorporated into the mixture. Slowly add 8 cups powdered sugar and beat on medium until a smooth and thick frosting has formed, about 3 minutes.
3. Scoop the frosting into a piping bag fitted with the piping tip of your choice (I use a large star tip). Secure the bag shut with a rubber band. Squeeze the icing onto the tops of the cooled cupcakes in the pattern of your choice.
4. Sprinkle with strawberry crunch topping immediately after icing. Place a sliced strawberry on top. Use as much or as little topping as you'd like. The recipe makes a lot of it, and you will probably have some left over. You can add it to other recipes, like strawberry baked oatmeal or strawberry toast. It's also delicious as a topping for pancakes.

Recipe Tips

• Use box cake mix. If you're short on time or ingredients or just want to make these tasty cupcakes even easier, use a box of strawberry cake mix.
• Use any type of vanilla or golden cookie. There are so many options for making the crunch topping. I love adding a bit of lemon flavor by using lemon Oreos, but you can use any cookie or cracker. Animal crackers, golden Oreos, vienna fingers, honey graham crackers, Italian biscuits, etc. all would taste wonderful in the crunch topping.
• Don't overfill the cupcake tin. Make sure to only fill the muffin cups ⅔ of the way to the top. If any higher, the batter will spill out over the sides and you'll get oddly shaped cupcakes.
• Don't frost them until they are completely cool. You can speed cooling up by putting the cupcakes in the fridge for about 10 minutes. If you frost the cupcakes while they are still warm, the icing may melt and drip down.
• Add strawberry crunch topping immediately after icing. Sprinkle on the topping after icing two or three cupcakes to ensure that it sticks.

Recipe FAQs