I am not what you would call a hopeless romantic; I don’t swoon over getting flowers or eating dinner by candlelight, although I wouldn’t complain if you threw in some chocolate covered strawberries! However, I am hopelessly devoted to food.
I am always trying to celebrate the holidays by finding new and creative ways to love and cherish the foods that coincide with that time of year. Since February is the month of love and chocolate, I knew I had to come up with a sensual dessert that was both beautiful and incredibly delicious. With a free morning on my hands, I decided to create my idea of the perfect dessert. Chocolate cupcakes with strawberry infused buttercream finishes with a luscious chocolate covered strawberry. Are you drooling yet?
When conceptualizing these cupcakes, I knew that I wanted to highlight chocolate covered strawberries because they are the quintessential Valentine’s Day treat. As I headed into the kitchen to begin baking, I realized I was out of cocoa powder and due to the fact that it was 8am, I was rocking sweats, and had not a stitch of makeup on, I decided to make do with what I had on hand.
After checking out my baking stash, I realized I had all the ingredients to my favorite doctored up cake mix recipe, so I rolled with it! I then whipped together my go to buttercream recipe and infused it with fresh strawberry puree, the results were amazing and tasted like strawberry ice cream!
It gets better… I then topped these already incredible delicious cupcakes with decadent chocolate covered strawberries to add a little creativity and a touch of elegance. If you have no idea what to make your sweetie for Valentine’s Day, I’m thinking these Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes just may be the winning recipe! Have a delicious Valentine’s Day!
Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes
Yield: 24 cupcakes
Ingredients:
For the Cupcakes
1 (18.25 ounce) package devil’s food cake mix
1 (5.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup sour cream
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup warm waterFor the Buttercream Frosting
3 sticks unsalted butter, softened
pinch of fine grain sea salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 pounds confectioners’ sugar, sifted
6 ounces strawberries, pureed
4-6 tablespoons heavy creamDirections:
For the Cupcakes
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tin with paper liners or spray with non-stick cooking spray.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat together the cake and pudding mixes, sour cream, oil, eggs, vanilla and water. Beat for about two minutes on medium speed until well combined.
3. Using a large cookie scoop, distribute the batter between 24 muffin wells; about 3 tablespoons of batter per well.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick entered into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Allow cupcakes to cool inside muffin tins for about 10 minutes.
5. Remove cupcakes from muffin tins and allow to fully cool on a wire rack. Once cupcakes are cool, prepare your frosting.
For the Buttercream Frosting
1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, cream butter on medium speed until fluffy. Turn your mixer down to low speed and slowly add in the confectioner’s sugar, and continue mixing until well blended.
2. Add salt, vanilla, 3 tablespoons of heavy cream and strawberry puree. Blend on low speed until moistened. Add an additional 1 to 3 tablespoons of heavy cream until you reach the desired consistency. Beat at high speed until frosting is smooth and fluffy
3. Pipe frosting onto cooled cupcakes and finish with a chocolate covered strawberry.
Notes:
- Frosting was piped onto cupcakes using the large round tip from Bake It Pretty.
- Find a simple recipe for chocolate covered strawberries here.
- Cupcakes will store in a sealed container within the refrigerator for two days.
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{ 44 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes this is definitely a perfect dessert for Valentine’s day! Love the chocolate and strawberry combo!
it does make a great combo im going to make this for my hubby this coming up year
These look so yummy!
These sound perfect! Strawberries and chocolate are always a winning combination!
Lovely cupcakes and Chocolate covered strawberries are the best!
Yes, as a matter of fact, I AM drooling. These look spectacular. I love chocolate dipped strawberries – and I want a bowl of that frosting!!
This is the perfect dessert for Valentine’s Day, but I could eat that frosting by the spoons full! Happy Valentine’s Day, my friend!
As always, your cupcakes look beautiful. Absolutely drool-worthy. I love the addition of a chocolate covered strawberry – it just takes it to a whole new level.
yum – these look so pretty! Love the pale pink buttercream! I made double chocolate hearts for valentine’s day – something makes Valentine’s day a chocolate overload so I’m nibbling on dried apricots to make up for it!
I love this idea! These cupcakes look perfect for today!
Love your improvisation! Looks fantastic and I bet tastes amazing!
Yum!! I’d much rather have a box of these than the same ol’ box of assorted chocolates!
These are completely gorgeous! Almost too pretty to eat…almost.
I am loving the idea of strawberry puree infused buttercream! Really outstanding idea, Jamie.
Wow! That frosting looks so soft and light, I kinda want to curl up an have a nap right next to a chocolate covered strawberry. Oops there I go, daydreaming about food again.
Happy Valentines!
I bet that frosting is AMAZING–I did a cherry buttercream not too long ago and fell in love.
Yes, I just said I fell in love with a frosting. I have issues.
Love chocolate covered strawberries!!!
So beautiful and perfect for Valentine’s Day!
Love these! These would make anyone smile.
No hopeless romantic here either. But, I’d love to whip up these cupcakes anytime. They look oh so gorgeous!
I love this, and that strawberry buttercream looks divine!
I always dreamed of making cupcakes like yours. Great photo, so tasty!
So pretty. Good idea!
While these are obviously decadent cupcakes, they are beautiful and elegant too. Perfect for a fun and classy Valentine’s treat.
Yum! Love these!
I think I could eat that frosting all by itself! I love the idea of infusing buttercream with fruit.
Lovely just lovely! I’m all about chocolate & strawberries! *swoon*
This frosting looks heavenly! Strawberries are one of my favorite things, so I’ll have to try these cupcakes soon.
What a perfect way to celebrate Valentines day. So pretty!
amazing! these look lovely, I want one right now!!
Would love to share these with my valentine!
These are amazing cupcakes. I wish I would have seen them before Valentine’s Day, so I could have made them. Oh well, there is always next year, right? Your frosting looks so pillowy and delicious!
I just made these this morning for a good friend’s birthday – they are beautiful!! Still can’t get my buttercream to be quite as smooth looking, but I’m impressed with myself nonetheless
I’ve never ventured into doctored up cake mix territory – I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The texture is so light and moist – I think the flavor lacks just a tiny bit, but topped with such a delicious and pillowy frosting and a chocolate covered strawberry – who will even notice?!
Thanks for another fantastic recipe!
Made these for my daughters birthday, and they were a huge hit. The frosting was amazing.
These look delicious! Now that Valentine’s is over, I think this is also a great way to give chocolate cake a spring/summer makeover especially if you don’t dip the fresh strawberries (I can’t believe I just wrote that!)
I have one question though. Besides making more frosting, would I need to change anything in the recipe in order to make this an actual cake?
These look divine! I just posted a strawberry cupcake recipe today that also begins with a boxed mix as it’s base. I normally do them with strawberry cream cheese icing made with fresh strawberries, but I opted to make a strawberry buttercream this time.
Great spring day post for me today! Strawberry Cupcakes (that are actually PINK) with Strawberry Buttercream.
Of course now I am craving one of yours….LOVE chocolate/strawberry together
Holy moly, these cupcakes look soooo amazing!
i made these without covering the strawberries in chocolate but my strawberries kept sliding off and “leaking” on the frosting…
any advice?
I made these cupcakes last night and need some help with the forsting. It tastes ok but it started to separate on me. Also, was I really supposed to add 2 pounds of powdered sugar? By the time I added all the sugar the mixer was having a hard time mixing…any advice? I seem to have trouble with frosting and I’m not sure why. This frosting turned out thin and not light and fluffy…
Hi! I was wondering what size tip you used for these (and some of your other) cupcakes? I have a big round tip, but it doesn’t seem to be that big. Thank you.
Thanks so much for stopping by. This is certainly one of the most common questions that appears in my inbox. For frosting most of the cupcakes that appear on My Baking Addiction, I typically use the Giant Round Tip from Bake It Pretty. It provides the nice large swirls that are seen here. I also use the Giant French Tip from Bake It Pretty which creates a more textural. I hope this helps you with your cupcake creations! Have a delicious day!
-Jamie
Made this buttercream and used the chocolate covered strawberry idea, YUM!! I used my own chocolate cake recipe. My buttercream turned out a bit more pink than in the picture, but that’s ok! I would change the buttercream from 3 sticks of butter to 2 sticks butter and 1/2 stick shortening, it didn’t hold up as well without the shortening. Thanks for the recipe, was a huge hit!
Was your icing separating? It seems like that is what mine is doing.
I made these for valentines day and yes they were very tasty but my frosting didnt turn out like it looks in the picture it seemed to just collapse
So I made these and the cupcakes turned out AMAZING! But I had some questions about the icing: I used frozen strawberries in a can and pureed those, I am thinking that is where I went wrong, because it seems like my frosting is separating. It also seems a little grainy. What do I do?? HELP!
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