High Altitude White Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes

A high altitude recipe for white chocolate strawberry cupcakes, made with soft vanilla cupcakes and fluffy strawberry buttercream, dipped in white chocolate and sprinkled with crushed freeze dried strawberries.

You might also love these neapolitan cupcakes, cherry cheesecake cupcakes, and vanilla orange creamsicle cupcakes.

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Soft and Moist. With my popular high altitude vanilla cupcakes as the starting point for today’s recipe, these white chocolate strawberry cupcakes are so fluffy and soft, with a lovely balance of flavors like vanilla, strawberries and creamy white chocolate.

Pretty in Pink. The freeze dried strawberries add a natural pink tint as well as flavor to the buttercream that you’re going to love. These would be beautiful for Valentine’s Day.

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

• Cupcakes. I started with my vanilla cupcake recipe, but if you want more strawberry flavor, this fresh strawberry cupcake recipe is also wonderful.
• Freeze Dried Strawberries. The freeze dried strawberries are crisp, so they’re easily crushed into a powder to flavor the buttercream. They also make a beautiful decoration on the white chocolate.
• White Chocolate. You can use white chocolate chips, or you can chop up a bar of white chocolate to make the chocolate dip.
• “Bright White” Gel Food Coloring. This is optional, but it helps to offset the yellow tint that white chocolate tends to have.

Instructions

Cupcakes

• Make the vanilla cupcakes as instructed, then let cool completely. If preferred, this recipe for strawberry cupcakes would also work well with the white chocolate.
• Use a cupcake corer to remove a small portion from the center of each cupcake.

Buttercream

• In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter for one minute until smooth.
• With the mixer on low speed, add the powdered sugar by spoonfuls, the crushed freeze dried strawberries, meringue powder and vanilla.
• Increase the speed to medium and beat for 4-5 minutes, stopping to scrape the bowl down several times, until very light and fluffy.
• Fit a disposable 16-inch piping bag with tip 1M, and fill half full with the buttercream.
• Pipe the buttercream into the centers of the cupcakes, then pipe a swirl on top of the cupcakes.
• Freeze the frosted cupcakes for 20 minutes, before dipping in the white chocolate. If you don’t freeze them first, the buttercream will fall off the cupcakes when you dip them.

White Chocolate

• While the cupcakes are freezing, melt the white chocolate. In a microwaveable bowl or glass measuring cup, combine the white chocolate chips and the shortening.
• Microwave for 2-3 minutes at 50% power, stirring until smooth.
• If desired, add a few drops of “bright white” gel food coloring to offset the yellow tint of the white chocolate.
• Let the white chocolate cool at room temperature until the cupcakes are ready to come out of the freezer.
• Dip the chilled cupcakes into the white chocolate. I prefer to only dip them halfway down, so that some of the pink buttercream is showing. Before the white chocolate hardens, sprinkle the cupcakes with freeze dried strawberries.

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

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