These easy dye free Vegan Strawberry Cupcakes with vegan strawberry buttercream will have your taste buds jumping for joy. Super soft, insanely rich, and perfectly filled with natural strawberries!
Cupcakes are like the perfect dessert. You never feel guilty for eating two because they are smaller than a piece of cake. And, these dye free vegan strawberry cupcakes will blow your mind.
They are so soft, so fluffy, and full of flavor.
The natural, fresh strawberries give such a burst of flavor in both the strawberry cupcakes and the strawberry frosting.
If you grow your own or can get farm fresh strawberries, it’s even better!!!
This is the perfect option for people who want to skip the traditional vanilla and chocolate versions and are looking for something a bit different, but not too drastic.
Plus, we love that it has zero dye in it.
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What ingredients do you need for dairy free strawberry cupcake?
Luckily, you don’t need any hard to find ingredients or a lot to make these delicious vegan strawberry cupcakes.
Full recipe amounts listed in printable recipe card below.
The ingredients that you need are:
- flour
- cake flour
- vegan sugar
- salt
- baking soda
- baking powder
- coconut oil
- strawberries
- strawberry extract
- nondairy milk
- apple cider vinegar
- powdered sugar
- vegan butter
Don’t let the list intimidate you! These cupcakes are easy to make.
It’s all done in one bowl! And includes all the ingredients that you also need for the dairy free strawberry buttercream frosting.
How do you make vegan strawberry cupakes?
These cupcakes are so easy to make!
It’s an almost breeze, but does take a little bit of your time. To start, you want to make the strawberry puree and the dairy free buttermilk. Set both aside. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl, you are going to add all your dry ingredients. Those ingredients are the flour, cake flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Whisk those together.
Then, add in the melted coconut oil, strawberry extract and vegan buttermilk.
Beat these together with a mixer. Then, add in the strawberry puree and beat again.
Pour the batter into muffin tins filled half way. Repeat with remaining batter until none remains.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool before frosting.
While the cupcakes are baking, you can make the vegan strawberry buttercream frosting.
What should the batter consistency be?
This batter is a thick consistency which you may not be used to when making cakes or cupcakes; however, we wanted to make sure you that you knew this and didn’t expect a thinner batter.
The texture is still amazing and you didn’t do anything wrong.
Also with that note, do not over mix the batter because it’s thicker. Only mix until combined. Overmixing will lead to a denser batter.
Do I have to use cake flour?
Cake flour is a type of flour that has a lower protein content than regular flour. Because of that, the results that you get are a lighter, airier, and fluffier cake.
To answer the question, no, you do not have to use cake flour.
You can substitute the same amount of cake flour for flour regular instead. (However, we recommend it! 😉 )
Do I have to use coconut oil?
We prefer coconut oil in this recipe; however, you could use another neutral oil like canola or vegetable.
One note about coconut oil is that it may solidify back up a bit when adding to the batter. It’s okay if it does this and will not effect the consistency.
If you really don’t want the oil to solidify back up, you can put your mixing bowl into a larger bowl filled halfway with warm water.
Also, you can use unrefined or refined coconut oil. Unrefined does have more of a coconut taste, so if that would bother you, then we suggest making sure you use refined.
How do you make strawberry puree?
To make the strawberry puree, you just throw fresh strawberries into a high powdered blender and pulse until you have a nice consistency.
If you do not like chunks of strawberries, you can puree even more small, or strain out the chunks.
However, for this recipe, the bigger pieces add in you being able to see and really taste the strawberries, so we recommend that you leave some chunkier pieces.
CAN I MAKE THIS INTO VEGAN STRAWBERRY CAKE?
You can absolutely make this into dairy free strawberry cake.
Simply make the recipe as normal and then instead of greasing cake pans, spray a cupcake pan or fill with liners.
Fill each one up ¾ of the way. You’ll want to reduce the cooking time to 15-20 minutes.
If you would prefer following specific directions – read our vegan strawberry cake post.
Can you make this Top 8 Allergen Free cupcakes?
The ingredients that are in these vegan strawberry cupcakes that are not Top 8 Allergen free are the flours, coconut oil, and vegan butter.
For the flours, I’d suggest something like King Arthur gluten free flour and it will work.
For the coconut oil, just replace it with a lightly flavored oil, like grapeseed.
And lastly, the vegan butter. Most butters are made with soy. We love the Earth Balance soy free tubs in the red containers.
Can I make these vegan strawberry cupcakes ahead of time?
You may be wondering if you can prep these cupcakes ahead of time. The answer is yes!
You can make the cake and the frosting up to 3 days before needed. Prepare them the same way.
Store the strawberry buttercream in an air tight container in the fridge.
Store the cupcakes in a cupcake container at room temperature.
We recommend not putting the frosting on until ready to serve.
Can I use a different frosting other than vegan strawberry buttercream frosting?
You do not have to use strawberry frosting on this cake (however, we highly recommend the pairing). If you’d like, you can try our other frostings like:
What are other vegan cake recipes that I should try?
Just because you have food allergies or preferences, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be able to have great tasting desserts.
We’d even venture to say that these are better than their “normal” counterparts.
These are some other dairy free cake recipes that you should try:
- The Best Vegan Chocolate Cake
- Vegan Carrot Cake
- Vegan Lemon Pound Cake
- Try these vegan vanilla cupcakes in a cake pan
For even more vegan cake recipes click here.
Pin this vegan strawberry cupcakes for later:
Dye Free Vegan Strawberry Cupcakes
Ingredients
For the Cake
- 1 pint fresh strawberries
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 cup unsweetened almond milk (can use another dairy free milk -see post for allergies notes)
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup cake flour
- 1 cup vegan sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup coconut oil, melted (can swap for another neutral oil – see post for food allergies notes)
- 2 teaspoon strawberry extract
Strawberry Buttercream Frosting
- ¼ cup strawberry puree (about 3-4 additional strawberries)
- 4 cups powdered sugar, divided
- ½ cup dairy free butter, COLD
- 1 tsp strawberry extract
Optional, Strawberry Jam Topping
- ¼ cup sugar
- 5-6 strawberries
- ¼ cup water + 3 tbsp
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch (can sub arrowroot)
Optional Topping
- fresh strawberries on top, see photos
Instructions
- Make the strawberry puree: Add the fresh strawberries to a blender and blend until small pieces remain. Make the vegan buttermilk: Pour 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar into a 1 cup measuring cup and fill the remaining cup with almond milk. Add liners to cupcake tins if using. If not grease tins.Set all aside.
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large bowl, add the flour, cake flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Whisk together.
- Add in melted coconut oil, strawberry extract and vegan buttermilk. Beat with a mixer until almost completely combine (this will be a thick dough).
- Add the strawberry puree and beat again.
- Pour batter into muffin tins half way filled. Repeat until no batter remains.
- Bake for 15-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
- Remove from oven and let cool before frosting.
For the Strawberry Buttercream Frosting
- Puree the strawberries like above for the cake.
- In a bowl, beat cold butter.
- Add half the powdered sugar. Beat.
- Add strawberry puree and extract. Beat again.
- Add rest of powdered sugar ½ cup at a time until the consistency you want. Beat until fully combined. (We prefer a thicker frosting to hold up when piping)
- Pipe onto cupcakes once cooled.
For the Jam, OPTIONAL
- If making the jam to drizzle on top, add the sugar, strawberries and ¼ cup water to a pot over medium low heat.
- Let it break down, stirring occasionally, for 10-15 minutes. Mash down the strawberries as they become softer.
- Mix the remaining water and cornstarch into a small bowl and pour it into pot was stirring at the same time.
- Cook another 2-3 minutes until thickened.
- Drizzle over cupcakes once cooled.
Rick Rolled
Could I use this same recipe to make a full cake out of it instead of cupcakes?
LarishaBernard
Here’s our cake recipe: https://makeitdairyfree.com/vegan-strawberry-cake/
kisten mayer
i was so excited to make this recipe but when they come out the oven they look so sad
LarishaBernard
Hi Kisten. We aren’t sure what “sad” even means in order to help you. If you want to reach out and tell us what happened we’d be happy to troubleshoot with you. You can comment below or email us at [email protected]
Mariann
Hi! Can I use 2 cups of flour instead of the cake flour ?
Thank you, I absolutely love your recipes😍
LarishaBernard
Yes
Andrea Rustad
I made these earlier this week and can’t remember if I commented or not, but I just made these again (this time with the frosting) and yum so good!! Definitely one of my new favorite vegan dessert recipes!!
LarishaBernard
We’re so happy to hear that you are loving the recipe! Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a review, we appreciate that!