I love baking for Valentine’s Day/Galentine’s Day, and since I didn’t really make any treats for Christmas, I was excited to spend some time in the kitchen, and had a super long list of things I wanted to bake. I also had two years worth of Val’s/Gal’s recipes stored up since we were in lockdown for the past couple of Februarys with no place to bring treats.

These cupcakes were first on my hit list, especially since I currently have a cupboard full of freeze dried strawberries to use up from my various cross-border excursions to Target and Trader Joe’s. Here’s what’s happening here: fluffy vanilla cupcake, stuffed with Nutella, topped with a swirl of strawberry and Nutella frostings. Almost too cute to eat!

I was a little bit skeptical of the strawberry/Nutella combo, but ended up LOVING IT. Freeze-dried strawberries are the only way to make strawberry frosting from now on. My co-workers loved these, and Val said this is the best thing I’ve ever baked. Huge hit!

Strawberry Nutella Swirl Cupcakes

Source: Sally’s Baking Addiction

Yield: 14-15 cupcakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes

  • 1 3/4 cups cake & pastry flour
  • 3/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 egg whites, room temperature
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 1/2 cup sour cream, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup milk (2% or 3.25% or even buttermilk)

Icings

  • 1 1/2 cups butter (3 sticks), room temperature
  • 6 cups icing sugar
  • 1/3 cup whipping cream
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • pinch salt
  • 1 cup freeze dried strawberries, grinded (ground?) into a powder
  • 1/3 cup Nutella

+ Nutella for filling

Directions

  1. For the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350 and line two muffin tins with 14 cupcake liners.
  2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.
  3. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth, about 2 minutes. Beat in the egg whites until combined, followed by the sour cream and vanilla.
  4. Add the dry ingredients and mix until combined, then add the milk and mix a final time, just until everything is smooth and combined.
  5. Spoon the batter into the liners until 2/3 full. Bake for 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Let cool completely before filling and frosting.
  6. For the icings, in a large bowl beat the butter until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the icing sugar, cream, vanilla and salt, and beat on low speed until icing sugar is incorporated, then increase the speed and whip until smooth and creamy. Scoop half this mixture into a separate bowl.
  7. Into the first bowl, add the strawberry powder and mix until smooth. Add the Nutella to the second bowl, and mix until smooth.
  8. To assemble, use a paring knife to cut a small hole out of the middle of each cupcake, and spoon Nutella into each one. To swirl the icing together, lay out a large piece of plastic wrap on the counter. Spoon one big column of strawberry icing down the middle, and another big column of Nutella icing next to it. Gather the plastic wrap together so you have a log of icing. Seal one end, and snip the end off the other end. Place the entire thing in a piping bag fitted with a large star tip.
  9. Swirl the icing on each cupcake and garnish with a chocolate heart!