These pretty pink vegan strawberry cupcakes are deliciously moist and packed with strawberry flavor! Topped with strawberry frosting.
These vegan strawberry cupcakes are so good. They are made with fresh strawberry purée and are just bursting with strawberry flavor.
They are also SO easy and quick with such a gorgeous color.
And if you love strawberries you’ll also love our vegan strawberry cake, our vegan strawberry shortcake and our vegan strawberry ice cream.
Ingredients You Need For The Cupcakes:
Ingredient Notes
- Distilled white vinegar – this reacts with the baking soda causing the cupcakes to rise. You can also use apple cider vinegar.
- Red gel food coloring – this just provides that lovely pink color. We only need to use a tiny bit in this recipe. Our favorite brand is Americolor. If you prefer to leave it out you can do so, but just keep in mind that the pink color of the batter usually won’t hold well when baked unless you add in the food coloring.
- Strawberry extract – this is great for intensifying the strawberry flavor. But if you can’t get hold of it you can just use vanilla extract. The strawberry purée on its own provides plenty of strawberry flavor.
- Fresh strawberries – these are puréed into strawberry purée and used in the batter.
- Canola oil – can be replaced with vegetable oil.
Ingredients You Need For The Frosting:
Ingredient Notes
- Strawberry extract – if you can’t get hold of it you can replace it with vanilla extract.
- Strawberry purée – we make a little extra strawberry purée than what is needed for the cake batter and use the leftovers in the frosting. This provides all the strawberry flavor and pretty pink color for the frosting.
How To Make Vegan Strawberry Cupcakes
You will find full instructions and measurements in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. This is a summary of the process to go along with the process photos.
- Add fresh strawberries to the food processor and purée. Set aside.
- Add all purpose flour, white granulated sugar, baking soda and salt to a mixing bowl and mix together.
- Add the strawberry purée, strawberry extract, canola oil, white vinegar and red gel food coloring and mix into a batter. Don’t over-mix.
- Divide the batter evenly between the cupcake liners and bake at 350°F for 20-25 minutes.
- Check for doneness by inserting a toothpick into the center of one of the cupcakes. It should come out clean.
- Let the cupcakes cool in the tray for a few minutes and then transfer the cupcakes to a wire cooling rack to cool before frosting.
- Add powdered sugar, vegan butter, strawberry extract and strawberry purée to a stand mixer. Starting at slow speed gradually increase the speed until the frosting is thick and smooth. If it’s too thick, add more strawberry purée.
- When the cupcakes have cooled completely pipe on the frosting and serve.
Pro Recipe Tips
Measure the flour correctly. The best way to measure the flour if you’re using cups is to use the spoon and level method. Spoon the flour into your measuring cup and then level off the top with a knife. Don’t pack the flour into the cup and don’t scoop the flour either. If you have a food scale then weigh the flour on your food scale for the best accuracy.
Don’t over-mix the batter. If you over-mix the batter it can cause your cupcakes to not rise properly and it can also affect the texture. So mix it until it’s mixed and then stop mixing.
Bake immediately. When your cupcake batter is mixed, divide it up between your cupcake liners and then bake immediately. If you let the batter sit for too long it can also cause the cupcakes to not rise properly.
Baking time. Check your cupcakes at 20 minutes and if they’re not done, then put them back in for another 5 minutes. Ours usually bake in 20 minutes but ovens can differ.
Storing and Freezing
Keep your cupcakes covered at room temperature where they will last for 2-3 days or covered in the fridge where they will last for up to a week.
They are also freezer friendly if you want to freeze them.
More Vegan Cupcakes
- Vegan Funfetti Cupcakes
- Vegan Banana Cupcakes
- Vegan Coffee Cupcakes
- Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes
- Vegan Pumpkin Cupcakes
- Vegan Lemon Cupcakes
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Strawberry Cupcakes
Ingredients
For the Cupcakes:
- 2 cups All Purpose Flour (250g)
- 1 cup White Granulated Sugar (200g)
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- ½ tsp Salt
- 1 cup Strawberry Purée (232g)
- 2 tsp Strawberry Extract
- ½ cup Canola Oil (120ml) or Vegetable Oil
- 1 Tbsp Distilled White Vinegar or Apple Cider Vinegar
- ⅛ tsp Red Gel Food Coloring
For the Strawberry Frosting:
- 4 cups Powdered Sugar (480g)
- ½ cup Vegan Butter (112g)
- 1 tsp Strawberry Extract
- 2-3 Tbsp Strawberry Purée
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C) and line a cupcake tray with cupcake liners. Set aside.
- Add fresh strawberries to the food processor (see notes*) and purée. Set aside.
- Add all purpose flour, white granulated sugar, baking soda and salt to a mixing bowl and mix together.
- Add the strawberry purée, strawberry extract, canola oil, white vinegar and red gel food coloring and mix into a batter. Don’t over-mix.
- Divide the batter evenly between the cupcake liners and bake for 20-25 minutes.
- Check for doneness by inserting a toothpick into the center of one of the cupcakes. It should come out clean.
- Let the cupcakes cool in the tray for a few minutes and then transfer the cupcakes to a wire cooling rack to cool before frosting.
- Prepare the frosting. Add powdered sugar, vegan butter, strawberry extract and 2 tablespoons of strawberry purée to a stand mixer. Starting at slow speed gradually increase the speed until the frosting is thick and smooth. If it's too thick, add more strawberry purée.
- When the cupcakes have cooled completely pipe on the frosting and serve.
Notes
- Measure the flour correctly. The best way to measure the flour if you’re using cups is to use the spoon and level method. Spoon the flour into your measuring cup and then level off the top with a knife. Don’t pack the flour into the cup and don’t scoop the flour either. If you have a food scale then weigh the flour on your food scale for the best accuracy.
- Strawberry purée. To make strawberry purée add strawberries to the food processor (leaves cut off) and purée. Around 10.5oz (300g) of strawberries puréed makes enough for the cupcakes and frosting.
- Strawberry extract – this is great for intensifying the strawberry flavor. But if you can’t get hold of it you can just use vanilla extract. The strawberry purée on its own provides plenty of strawberry flavor.
- Red gel food coloring – this just provides that lovely pink color. We only need to use a tiny bit in this recipe. Our favorite brand is Americolor. If you prefer to leave it out you can do so, but just keep in mind that the pink color of the batter usually won’t hold well when baked unless you also add in the food coloring.
- Storing and Freezing. Keep your cupcakes covered at room temperature where they will last for 2-3 days or covered in the fridge where they will last for up to a week. They are also freezer friendly if you want to freeze them.
- This recipe was first published in February 2018. It has been updated with new photos and a few small changes/improvements to the recipe.
Hi.. Something I recently learned for fruit flavored frosting is to get freeze dried fruit (little bag of freeze dried snack strawberries or even have them in the baby food isle!)… Smash them up good or mix in food processor with some powdered sugar, and then use that as the powdered sugar in the frosting!! I have seen several kinds of feeeze dried fruits in snack bags even at the dollar store. Works great!! Then you don’t have the watered down part from the fruit either. Love your recipes btw.. Have substituted Gluten free flour with success!!
Hi Brandy, thanks for sharing! I think freeze dried strawberries would work great! Unfortunately I can’t ever find them here but if you can get them I think it would be great. So glad you like the recipes! 🙂
Brandy/Alison,
I’m making these for a GF friend. I saw in a later comment to use a GF All Purpose flour. Do you have suggestions for which brand is best?
Thanks!!
I’m a fan of Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour. But any blend will likely do fine too.
I just made these for my sister’s birthday. I used ColorKitchen Pink food coloring and they came out beautifully colored. Are these cupcakes more of a dense cake? My first batch of frosting separated. Perhaps I had my Kitchenaid stand mixer on too high of a speed. Gonna give it a go again in a bit.
So glad the color was good! No, they are supposed to be more light and fluffy, not dense at all. If you didn’t already I would highly recommend weighing the flour, if you accidentally use too much that can certainly cause a more dense result. I’m not sure about the frosting, my guess would be the brand of vegan butter used. All the best! 🙂
Separating/curdling in frosting usually means that not all of your ingredients were the same temperature.
Excellent recipe!!! I didn’t use the strawberry essence because it wasn’t at my local grocery store, but the cupcakes were still great. In fact, I can’t imagine them being better. The frosting was delicious and was just the right consistency. The red food coloring is definitely a must, even though I shy away from artificial ingredients – these cupcakes just need to be red!
Thanks so much for sharing and the awesome review Alicia! 🙂
Can I substitute the all purpose flour for whole wheat flour or almond flour?
Whole wheat might work, I’m not sure. But almond flour no. A gluten-free all purpose flour blend is going to be the best bet if you want it to be gluten free.
Hi Allison! Making these beautiful cupcakes this weekend for my moms 60th birthday since she loves strawberry! Can you tell me is vegan margarine okay to use in place of vegan butter? I’m finding it tricky to find the vegan butter in stores but I have the margarine.
Thank you!
Hi Odette, yes definitely margarine is just fine! All the best! 🙂
OMG! These cupcakes were so delicious! The icing held up well and the strawberry flavour and colour was amaaazing 🙂 My mom was so excited to eat them, plus my niece and nephew and all other family members, who are not vegan wanted seconds! Thanks for the amazing recipe! 🙂
Wonderful to hear that! Thanks for the amazing review. xo
I ran out of strawberries after making the cupcakes. How important is the strawberry purée for the frosting?
Hi Crystal, you could switch the frosting for another cupcake frosting like our strawberry vanilla frosting on our vegan vanilla cupcakes (no strawberry purée needed). 🙂
Do you think I can sub frozen strawberries? Or maybe purée them and reduce them on the stove?
I think you can, but just thaw them out first and dry off with a paper towel and then purée as normal in the food processor.
I was so proud of these! I never make cupcakes! Never from scratch either. Much less vegan. The batter color was gorgeous and delicious as was the icing! I accidentally cooked it a fewish…minutes longer cause my son walked in and we started talking lol.. anyway so they had a slight chewiness to top but inside was perfect! Took them to a family dinner. Big hit! In fact cousin said he liked the top of cupcake slightly overdone. lol Now that I have another carton of strawberries, I want to make some more and time it just right! I can’t wait to try some of these other cupcake recipes! Fun!!
Fantastic Diana! Go glad they were a success. Thanks so much for the awesome review. 🙂
Thanks alot the recipe is great but i am wondering why my strawberry cupcakes turned brown just like chocolate cupcake!!!the smell the flavour and the moist and spongy texture t is wow but the color is surprising although i used a little bit of red coloring
Hi Amal, I have found the color to be brown if you don’t add red or pink food coloring, perhaps you used too little?
Hi Alison I absolutely love all your recipes! I was wondering if you can use I think it’s called freeze dried strawberry that you can make into a powder and it’s 100% natural in place of flavoring and red dye but if not are the flavoring and red dye considered vegan? I’m kinda new to vegan baking
Hi Cindy, I definitely think you could use that in the frosting! I can’t get freeze dried strawberries where I am so it’s not something I’ve tried but I have seen other recipes use it and it looks great! I’m not sure about using that in the cake itself though. If you want to omit the color from the cake you can absolutely do it though. Most red food dyes are vegan these days but read ingredients to make sure and you can always contact the company as well if you have doubts, I have contacted Foster Clarks (UK) and McCormicks (USA) and both have confirmed their colors are vegan so if either of those are an option for you, then they’re good options. All the best!
Thank you Allison so much for getting back to me that sounds awesome I just might order it from Amazon you said I can order it? If I can’t find it in the supermarket also is it possible to make them gluten-free and if so how would I do it I know with your chocolate cake I think I added more oil and I think applesauce but I’m not sure the ratio I forgot thank you again so much!
Hi Cindy, the strawberry extract is linked in the recipe. I’m sure you could make them gluten-free but I haven’t tested it with this recipe so can’t advise on specific amounts, you could check out our gluten-free vanilla cupcakes for a reference point.
Hi Alison, thanks again for this great recipe. I made another batch of these cupcakes for work because they are so delicious, and although my non-vegan colleagues enjoyed them, they said they could taste the olive oil in the sponge. Is there an alternative oil I could use next time that doesn’t have a strong/noticeable taste?
Hi Mike, sure you can use a different kind of vegetable oil, like canola if you prefer. Any vegetable oil will do. I imagine some olive oils must be stronger tasting than others because I’ve never noticed a taste from it, but I always use extra virgin olive oil, I don’t know if that has anything to do with it or not. But yes, you can definitely substitute the oil for a different one. Thanks for the awesome rating! 🙂
Thanks for the information Alison, I’ll experiment with canola and other oils and see which one turns out the best!
Thank you for such a great recipe, my cupcakes turned out very delicious! The colouring I used however faded to a dull red shade after baking; which food colouring do you recommend using?
Hi Mike, glad you liked the recipe! I have used a few brands of food color, the important thing is that it’s good for baking, some of them are only really good for coloring frostings and stuff like that, when it doesn’t need to be baked. I have used Foster Clark’s which is a UK brand and I have confirmed with them that their food colors are vegan. So if you can get that brand it definitely works well. Otherwise McCormicks is a good brand for the USA.
Thanks for the swift reply! I’ll buy some of Foster Clark’s colouring for my next baking session, thank you 😀
I can’t find strawberry extract or essence anywhere. Should I replace with vanilla or just leave it out?
Hi Julie, I have linked in the ingredients list now to where you can get it on Amazon. You could replace it with vanilla for a vanilla/strawberry flavor blend which would be very tasty too. The extract really helps to bring out the strawberry flavor, but vanilla is an option and I think preferable to leaving it out altogether.
I couldn’t find strawberry extract either. I didn’t have time to order so I used half almond and half vanilla extract.
Hi Kelsey, thanks for sharing! Hope it came out well. 🙂
I made a bunch of these mini style for my class for Valentine’s Day. Everyone loved them 🙂 Also, for the color, I used a little bit of beet juice and it worked great!
Fantastic Albina! Thanks for sharing! I’ve never managed to make beet juice work, so well done on that too! 🙂
Scrumptious vegan cupcakes, moist, pretty and romantic!
Lovely muffins with great strawberry flavor (even without the strawberry extract, which I replaced with vanilla). I needed these to be more of a muffin than cake, so made them sans frosting and used white whole wheat flour (measured by weight) instead of all purpose, and 1/3 cup each of the following granulated sweeteners to replace the full cup of sugar: allulose, monkfruit sugar, and white sugar. These came out fluffy and cake like even though the tops are domed and cracked like muffins. Will definitely make them again!
Awesome, thanks for sharing SJ!