sweet strawberry cupcakes

by Rachel McCarthy
Happy Thursday! I’ve been on a real cupcake kick as of late. I use to make cupcakes all the time, but it can be time consuming to make a homemade cupcake with homemade frosting. I love the idea of “enhancing” a cake mix from a box. My favorite brand of cake mix is Duncan Hines; I find their mixes to be most like a homemade cake. By adding just a few ingredients, you can make a cake box mix taste like you’ve spent hours in the kitchen! 

I was experimenting with the frosting on this one. I had a huge container of strawberries that I wanted to use up, so I pureed the strawberries and added them to the store-bought vanilla frosting. You could definitely just keep a plain vanilla frosting and garnish with a fresh strawberry, but if you are looking for more of that sweet strawberry flavor, I would add the pureed strawberries to the frosting. I got a little too carried away with the strawberry puree, so the frosting was pretty thin {hence why there isn’t a pretty swirl on these cupcakes!}. If you want a stiffer frosting that will make the perfect swirl, I would decrease the number of strawberries you puree or add more frosting to the amount I used 🙂 
sweet-strawberry-cupcakes

Sweet Strawberry Cupcakes 
*slightly adapted from My Baking Addiction 

For the Cupcakes:
1 box vanilla cake mix {I used this}
1/2 of 3.4 ounce package of instant vanilla pudding mix
1 {individual size} Greek strawberry yogurt {I used this}
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup water
4 eggs, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
10 fresh strawberries, diced
For the Frosting:
1 container store-store bought vanilla frosting {I used this}
6-8 fresh strawberries, quartered 
24 fresh, whole strawberries for garnish, if desired
24 cupcake wrappers {I used these}
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line the muffin tin with cupcake liners. In a large bowl, mix the cake mix, instant pudding, Greek yogurt, vegetable oil, water, eggs and vanilla extract with a hand mixer for about 2 minutes, or until the batter is smooth. Fold in the fresh, diced strawberries. Fill the cupcake tins about 3/4 full. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until the tops of the cupcakes spring back when lightly touched {mine we perfect at about 19 minutes}. Allow the cupcakes to cool for 3-5 minutes in the muffin tin before transferring to a cooling rack. Cool completely before frosting. In a medium size bowl, place the store-bought vanilla frosting. Blend 6-8 quartered strawberries in a food processor until a puree forms; add strawberry puree to the frosting. Mix together to combine. Frost each cupcake and top with whole strawberry. 
Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend!

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