Strawberry Piñata Cupcakes
Make your next celebration sweeter with Strawberry Piñata Cupcakes! The recipe features moist strawberry cupcakes filled with colorful candy sprinkles and homemade strawberry buttercream frosting. These cupcakes are perfect for birthdays, holidays, or any occasion that calls for a fun and festive treat.
Everyone loves a good cupcake. There are all kinds of cupcake recipes out there but ones with a fun-filled center like these piñata cupcakes are perfect for a summer party or any event you want a sweet treat.
It’s been a super busy time lately, but I wanted to bake another filled cupcake, so I took a shortcut by using a boxed cake mix to make these Strawberry Surprise Cupcakes. If you love a little surprise inside your cupcakes as I do, you’ll love these Strawberry Daiquiri Cupcakes and these Fall Piñata Cupcakes.
Filled Strawberry Cupcakes are regular cupcakes on the outside, but when you take a bite, you’ll discover a colorful explosion of sprinkles. Creating these fun and festive treats filled with colorful sprinkles is easy and you can customize the color of sprinkles to any theme, event, or holiday.
Strawberry Piñata Cupcakes
The combination of a moist strawberry cupcake, a hidden candy sprinkle surprise, and creamy homemade strawberry frosting makes these cupcakes a perfect treat. If you have a family favorite recipe for homemade cupcakes you can use that. However, I chose to use a strawberry cake mix to make the cupcakes since I had one in the pantry.
You can use any color of sprinkles to fill the inside of the cupcakes, I used a pink mix to keep with the theme of pinks and reds. Mini M&M’s are also a great idea to use for the pinata filling. Get creative with the candies. If you prefer, you can fill the inside with frosting, a lemon mousse, or even strawberry preserves.
How to Core Cupcakes without a Corer
If you don’t have a cute little cupcake corer, you can use a knife to gently cut the center out. You can also use the frosting tip, as I did with this recipe to cut the center out. Be sure to keep the top of the piece you cut out so you can replace on the cupcake once you fill it.
Can I bake cupcakes ahead of time?
Yes, you can bake cupcakes a couple of days ahead of time. Once baked and cooled arrange them (unfrosted) on a baking sheet, wrap the whole pan with plastic wrap, and store at room temperature. If filling and frosting, do so before serving.
Timesaving Tips and Variations
More Cupcake Recipes
- Small Batch Chocolate Cupcakes
- Summer Beach Theme Lemon Cupcakes
- Pumpkin Spice Cream Cheese Cupcakes
- Homemade Carrot Cupcakes
- Green Velvet Cupcakes
💡Explore my favorite Baking Essentials (Amazon affiliate link)
Recommend Tools for this Recipe
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- cupcake pan (muffin tin)
- paper cupcake liners
- cutting board
- knife
- large mixing bowl (to make the cupcake batter)
- measuring cups and spoons
- handheld electric mixer
- medium mixing bowl (to make the frosting)
- blender or food processor (to puree the strawberries)
- rubber spatula
- large muffin scoop
- piping bag and frosting tip
- wire cooling rack
Ingredients
- 12 strawberry cupcakes (baked from a strawberry cake mix)
- ¼ cup sprinkles
- 3-4 tablespoons pureed strawberries (about ½ cup diced strawberries)
- ¼ cup (1 stick) butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 ¾ cup powdered sugar
- 4 strawberries, sliced (to top the cupcakes)
Directions
Bake the strawberry cupcakes according to the directions on the back of the box. Remove from oven when done and allow to cool on a wire rack.
While the cupcakes are baking, slice and puree your strawberries. You can puree them in a food processor or blender. In a large mixing bowl, add the butter and the strawberry puree, and blend well. Then add about half the powdered sugar and blend well. Add the remaining powdered sugar and blend until creamy and smooth.
Use the frosting tip or knife to cut out the center of each cupcake, then fill with the sprinkles, and put the top of the center that you took out back into the cupcake, gently pushing down on it.
Add frosting to a piping bag equipped with the tip that you used and pipe frosting onto the cupcakes in a circular motion, starting from one side, around the cupcake, and meeting the end, then moving into the center and stopping. Gently push a sliced strawberry onto the top of the frosted cupcake.
Serve and enjoy the sweet surprise inside these delightful Strawberry Piñata Cupcakes!
#SummerDessertWeek
Summer Dessert Week is continuing this week and the event is hosted by Angie, from Big Bear’s Wife. We’ve got 15 amazing bloggers creating summer-themed dessert recipes to share this week on our blogs (some of those recipe links posted in this post) and on social media with the hashtag #SummerDessertWeek.
Today’s Summer Dessert Recipes:
Printable Recipe Card
Strawberry Piñata Cupcakes
Equipment
- cupcake pan (muffin tin)
- paper cupcake liners
- knife
- large mixing bowl (to make the cupcake batter)
- handheld electric mixer
- medium mixing bowl (to make the frosting)
- blender or food processor (to puree the strawberries)
- rubber spatula
- large muffin scoop
- piping bag and frosting tip
- wire cooling rack
Ingredients
- 12 strawberry cupcakes (baked from a strawberry cake mix)
- ¼ cup sprinkles
- 3 – 4 tablespoons pureed strawberries (about ½ cup iced strawberries
- ½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 ¾ cup powdered sugar
- 4 strawberries, sliced, to garnish the cupcakes
Instructions
- Bake the strawberry cupcakes according to the directions on the back of the box. Remove from oven when done and allow to cool on a wire rack.
- While the cupcakes are baking, slice and puree your strawberries. You can puree them in a food processor or blender.
- In a large mixing bowl, add the butter and the strawberry puree, and blend well.
- Then add about half the powdered sugar and blend well. Add the remaining powdered sugar and blend until creamy and smooth.
- Use the frosting tip or knife to cut out the center of each cupcake, then fill with the sprinkles, and put the top of the center that you took out back into the cupcake, gently pushing down on it.
- Add frosting to a piping bag equipped with the tip that you used and pipe frosting onto the cupcakes in a circular motion, starting from one side, around the cupcake, and meeting the end, then moving into the center and stopping. Gently push a sliced strawberry onto the top of the frosted cupcake.
Notes
Nutritional Disclaimer
“Blogghetti” is not a dietician or nutritionist, and any nutritional information shared is an estimate. If calorie count and other nutritional values are important to you, we recommend running the ingredients through whichever online nutritional calculator you prefer. Calories and other nutritional values can vary quite a bit depending on which brands were used.
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Enjoy!
These are super cute Lisa! I love surprise inside cupcakes!
My niece loves to bake when she visits and she’ll have a blast with these! Love the variation of chocolate cupcakes with strawberry frosting with the surprise inside!
What fun to have sprinkles inside the cupcake! And the strawberry flavor sounds so good. I love a good strawberry cake.
These look so fluffy and tasty…and I love the bright fun colors!