I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend. Jason and I have been so crazed and we completely forgot to buy his mom a gift so we decided to treat her out to one of her favorite lunch places. I was thinking about baking a bundt cake to bring along with me but knowing that we were providing lunch, I decided to take the day off on Saturday night.

But then on Sunday morning at 7:00AM, I woke up in a panic thinking that I just had to bake something for Mother’s Day. How could I not? I’m a food blogger for crying out loud and I still hadn’t made anything Mother’s Day related! I felt ashamed, and I scrambled to the computer to browse through my bookmarked recipes in hopes of finding something suitable for the occasion.

After 32 minutes and 28 seconds, I found the perfect recipe. A chocolate cupcake base topped with a fresh strawberry buttercream. Nothing screams Mother’s Day more than a strawberry chocolate combination, right?

It was slowly just about 8 and since lunch was going to be at noon, I thought I would have ample time to bake some cupcakes.

Little did I know that baking/decorating/packaging cupcakes, taking pictures for the blog, and getting ready in 3 1/2 hours while instragramming and twittering in between was going to be near impossible. It became disastrous at some point where I put in the second batch of cupcakes into the oven but later found out that I had turned off the oven 20 minutes earlier. I was pretty damn pissed but since the first batch of cupcakes turned out with an amazing mile-high rise, I got over it pretty quickly.

But all in all, I have to say that baking these cupcakes was an absolute success. The chocolate base was incredibly fluffy and moist, but the real star here was the strawberry buttercream. Never in my life have I had such a soft-textured buttercream. I swear, I felt like I was eating a strawberry cloud. Couple that with some chocolate cake and there you’ll have the best cupcake-frosting combination ever.

One year ago: Strawberry Cake

Chocolate Cupcakes with Fresh Strawberry Buttercream (adapted from Krissy’s Creations):

Yields 24 cupcakes

  • 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup cocoa powder
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

For the strawberry buttercream:
  • 3 cups (6 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 6 cups confectioners’ sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 1 cup fresh strawberries, plus more for garnish

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Line a 12-cup standard muffin tin with paper liners; set aside. (If you don’t want to use paper liners, you could coat a muffin pan with cooking spray instead.)

In a large bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk together the milk, olive oil, eggs and vanilla.

Pour mixture over dry ingredients and stir using a rubber spatula just until moist.

Stir in 1 cup boiling water. (The batter will be very thin.)

Scoop the batter evenly into the muffin tray.

Place into oven and bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from oven and cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

In the bowl of a food processor, pulse the strawberries until pureed; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the butter on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.

Beat in confectioners’ sugar and salt, gradually increasing in speed, until well combined.

Beat in vanilla until well combined.

Add 1/2 cup strawberry puree. Increase the speed to medium high and whip until the frosting is light and fully, about 2 minutes.

Use a small offset spatula to spread the cupcakes with frosting and top with sliced strawberries. (I piped the frosting using a large french tip.)

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