Strawberry Crunch Cupcakes

These easy Strawberry Crunch Cupcakes are made with a delicious from-scratch batter, vanilla cream cheese frosting and a crispy freeze dried strawberry and cookie topping. One of the best fruity homemade cupcakes you'll make!

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.

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!

While you can make this recipe completely from scratch like we do, you can easily make it even more simple by using store bought cake mix too (we won't tell anyone!).

Ingredients Needed

To make strawberry cupcakes you need:

• Strawberry syrup
• All-purpose flour
• Plain yogurt: either Greek or traditional
• 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

Instructions

Make The Cupcakes

STEP 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.

STEP 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.

STEP 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.

STEP 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

STEP 5: 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.

Make The Frosting

STEP 6: 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.

STEP 7: 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.

Sprinkle with strawberry crunch topping immediately after icing. 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.

Place a sliced strawberry on top.

Enjoy!

Recipe