Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes

I was inspired to make these cupcakes by an episode of Nadiya Bakes, starring one of the winners of the Great British Baking Show, Nadiya Hussain. I enjoyed watching her on the original show, but I’m actually more impressed by her current work! In any event, I didn’t use her actual recipe, but I did use it as a jumping-off point for my own version, which turned out reasonably well. Honestly, I thought they had room for improvement, but multiple people have told me they were great as-is, so I guess you’ll have to decide!

The concept is that you take a golden Oreo and put it in the bottom of a cupcake liner, topped with a single whole strawberry. Then you pour vanilla cake batter over it and bake the cupcakes that way. Topped with a strawberry buttercream flavored with freeze-dried strawberries, the fruity flavor really comes through! That being said, I found that the Oreo got very hard after being baked, which was not to my taste– I did overbake the cupcakes a bit, which may have contributed to the issue, but don’t be surprised if your Oreo toasts up and gets extremely crunchy!

I will note that this cake batter must be essentially foolproof, because despite my putting the ingredients together in completely the wrong order, messing up the amount of liquid, and over-baking the batter because I forgot to set a timer, it still turned out well! As for the frosting, it was fabulous and I will add it to my permanent recipe file– it’s that good!

Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes (makes 12)

Vanilla Sour Cream Cake Batter (from Food52)

• 1 2/3 cups flour (200g)
• 1 cup sugar (100g)
• 2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup sour cream (115g)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil (50g)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3 tbs. boiling water

• 12 golden Oreos
• 12 medium strawberries, tops sliced off

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line a muffin pan with paper muffin liners.
• In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
• In a separate bowl, beat egg and sour cream until smooth. Add vegetable oil and vanilla and beat until smooth again.
• Pour egg-oil mixture into dry ingredients and stir to form a thick batter.
• Add boiling water to loosen up the batter and stir until completely smooth.
• Place a golden Oreo into the bottom of each muffin liner and top with a strawberry, cut side down.

• Pipe batter around each strawberry until about 1/2 inch from the top of the liner.

• Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes, until toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.
• Cool completely before frosting.

Strawberry Buttercream (from Sally’s Baking Addiction)

• 1 cup freeze-dried strawberries
• 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature (235g)
• 4 cups powdered sugar (480g)
• 1/4 cup heavy cream (60ml), plus more as desired
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 tsp. salt

• Using a mini food processor or blender, pulverize strawberries to a powder.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter until creamy.
• Add remaining ingredients and beat until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add additional cream (I used probably another 3-4 tablespoons) and continue to beat to get a lighter texture if desired. For even lighter frosting you can use milk instead of cream. Personally, I like it fluffy enough that the mixer makes a constant “slapping” sound as it beats the frosting– if you’re not getting that noise, your frosting will be pretty dense.

• Pipe generously onto cupcakes and top with more freeze-dried strawberry powder.

Advertisement