These Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes have a rich, moist homemade chocolate cupcake with a tall swirl of strawberry frosting that's made with fresh strawberries and topped with a chocolate covered strawberry.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two cupcake pans with paper liners.
In a medium bowl, add in the melted butter, vegetable oil, and cocoa powder. Whisk until smooth.
Add in the buttermilk, sour cream, and vanilla. Continue to whisk until the sour cream is incorporated.
Whisk in the eggs until combined.
In a large mixing bowl, add in cake flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Stir until blended.
Pour the cocoa mixture into the bowl with the dry ingredients. Whisk until everything is combined and most of the lumps have disappeared.
Fill each cupcake liner ¾ full.
Place in the preheated oven and bake for 18 - 23 minutes until done. Insert a toothpick or skewer in the center of the cupcakes in the middle of the cupcake pan, if they come out clean or with moist crumbs, they're done.
Let the cupcakes cool for about 15 minutes and then turn onto a cooling rack to finish cooling.
Strawberry Frosting
Add the 3 cups of strawberries to a food processor or blender. Pulse until the strawberries are pureed. You should have about 1 ½ cups or just a little more strawberry puree.
Add the puree into a medium saucepan over medium heat and let it cook down to roughly ½ cup of puree. Mine actually measured out to be ½ cup plus ½ tablespoon. If you have more than that, pop it back into the saucepan and continue to cook it until it's reduced to ½ cup. The time may vary, but it took 22 - 24 minutes for me. Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature.
Add the butter, vanilla extract, and 4 cups of powdered sugar to a large mixing bowl. Using a hand mixer, beat on low until most of the powdered sugar is incorporated.
Add in half of the strawberry puree and continue to beat until incorporated.
Beat in the remaining powdered sugar into the bowl. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Add the remaining strawberry puree to the frosting and beat until incorporated.
Spread the frosting on top of cupcakes, cakes, etc. It can be piped into a shell border or rose swirl using the Wilton 1M tip.