These high altitude strawberry pistachio cupcakes are nutty, moist, and slightly dense, frosted with fluffy strawberry buttercream, and sprinkled with crushed pistachios.
You might also love these high altitude recipes for iced apricot pistachio cookies, lemon pistachio cupcakes, and chocolate pistachio layer cake.
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Dense and Nutty. With lots of chopped pistachios in the cake batter, these cupcakes have a wonderful nutty flavor and texture.
Versatile Recipe. Pistachios pair wonderfully with many other flavors. Instead of the strawberry buttercream, frost your pistachio cupcakes with lemon buttercream, chocolate buttercream, vanilla buttercream, cream cheese frosting, or pistachio buttercream.
High Altitude Tested. I develop all the recipes on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet. If you’re at a lower or higher elevation, please see my FAQs for guidance on adjusting recipes for your altitude.
See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.
Ingredients
- Pistachios. To keep things easy, I used shelled, salted pistachios. You’ll need a food processor or Ninja to very finely chop the pistachios.
- Freeze Dried Strawberries. The freeze dried strawberries add a strong strawberry flavor (and natural pink color) to the buttercream. They’re easy to crush into a powder.
- Almond Extract. Almond extract is often paired with pistachios to enhance their flavor.
- All Purpose Flour.
- Granulated Sugar + Powdered Sugar.
- Baking Powder.
- Salt.
- Butter + Vegetable Oil.
- Milk + Sour Cream.
- Eggs.
- Vanilla Extract.
Instructions
Pistachio Cupcakes
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line standard muffin/cupcake pans with 20 paper liners.
- Use a food processor or Ninja to finely chop the pistachios. Set aside 2 tbsp of the chopped pistachios for decorating later.
- In a large bowl, whisk together all but the reserved 2 tbsp of chopped pistachios with the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
- Separately, whisk together the melted butter, milk, sour cream, eggs, oil, vanilla, and almond extract.
- Add the liquid ingredients to the dry, and whisk the batter until combined; it will be slightly thick.
- Divide the batter between 20 cupcake liners, filling them no more than 2/3 full.
- Bake the cupcakes for about 20 minutes, until the tops spring back when lightly touched.
- Cool the cupcakes completely before frosting.
Strawberry Buttercream
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter for one minute, until smooth.
- Use a food processor or ninja to finely crush the freeze dried strawberries into a powder; you should get about 4 tbsp of powder.
- With the mixer on low, add the powdered sugar by spoonfuls, the crushed freeze dried strawberries, meringue powder, and salt, mixing until combined. Add the vanilla.
- Increase the speed to medium, and whip for 4-5 minutes until light and fluffy. If needed, add 1-2 tbsp milk for desired consistency. Turn the speed down to “stir”, and mix for one more minute.
- Fit a piping bag with tip 1M, and fill with buttercream. Pipe the buttercream onto the cooled cupcakes, and sprinkle with the remaining crushed pistachios.
Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common questions with cake making, so that you can be successful in your own baking! I also suggest reading these comprehensive posts on making Perfect American Buttercream, How to Stack, Fill, Crumb Coat and Frost Layer Cakes and How to Use Piping Bags.
Frequently Asked Questions
Store leftover cupcakes in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
You can find my pistachio buttercream recipe here.
You Might Also Like
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High Altitude Strawberry Pistachio Cupcakes
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment
Ingredients
Pistachio Cupcakes
- 1 cup (5 oz) salted, shelled pistachios, very finely chopped
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 ¾ tsp baking powder
- ½ cup coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- ½ cup unsalted butter, melted
- ½ cup whole milk
- ½ cup sour cream
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp almond extract
Strawberry Buttercream
- 1 ½ cups unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 cup (22 g) freeze dried strawberries, crushed into a powder
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 2 tsp meringue powder (optional)
- â…› tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
Pistachio Cupcakes
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line standard muffin/cupcake pans with 20 paper liners.
- Use a food processor or Ninja to finely chop the pistachios. Set aside 2 tbsp of the chopped pistachios for decorating later.
- In a large bowl, whisk together all but the reserved 2 tbsp of chopped pistachios with the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
- Separately, whisk together the melted butter, milk, sour cream, eggs, oil, vanilla, and almond extract.
- Add the liquid ingredients to the dry, and whisk the batter until combined; it will be slightly thick.
- Divide the batter between 20 cupcake liners, filling them no more than 2/3 full.
- Bake the cupcakes for about 20 minutes, until the tops spring back when lightly touched.
- Cool the cupcakes completely before frosting.
Strawberry Buttercream
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter for one minute, until smooth.
- Use a food processor or ninja to finely crush the freeze dried strawberries into a powder; you should get about 4 tbsp of powder.
- With the mixer on low, add the powdered sugar by spoonfuls, the crushed freeze dried strawberries, meringue powder, and salt, mixing until combined. Add the vanilla.
- Increase the speed to medium, and whip for 4-5 minutes until light and fluffy. If needed, add 1-2 tbsp milk for desired consistency. Turn the speed down to "stir", and mix for one more minute.
- Fit a piping bag with tip 1M, and fill with buttercream. Pipe the buttercream onto the cooled cupcakes, and sprinkle with the remaining crushed pistachios.
Notes
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