Strawberry Cupcakes – Egg Free, Dairy Free, Vegan

Vegan strawberry cupcakes made with fresh strawberries for a strikingly scrumptious strawberry flavor. They’re easy to make without any dairy or eggs! Top them off with strawberry flavored vegan buttercream for an ultimate strawberry dessert!

These vegan cupcakes are perfect to make when you need a dessert everyone will love but don’t want to spend hours in the kitchen. While I love making vegan cake, cupcakes have a shorter bake time, and cool down quicker, so you can go from mixing to frosting in about half the time.

For that reason, these vegan strawberry cupcakes are my go-to easy vegan dessert.

Strawberry cupcakes go perfectly with – what else? Strawberry frosting! I made a vegan frosting using coconut oil and added some strawberry purée to create this strawberry frosting.

Vegan Strawberry Cupcakes

The previous time I’d made strawberry cupcakes was also a flop.

So I was so glad after making this recipe for strawberry cupcakes (and yes, they also happen to be vegan) when everyone tried them and said how delicious they were.

That frosting! Yumm!

And the inside has so much strawberry flavor!

Can I eat another one?

I definitely was not disappointed with these cupcakes, and I don’t think you will be either!

Vegan Strawberry Cupcakes Recipe

You’ll need about 4 cups of fresh strawberries to start out with, with the leaves removed. Just put them into a blender and blend them up until they’re nicely puréed. You don’t need to strain them!

Here’s the ingredients you need to make these cupcakes:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup strawberry purée
• 1/3 cup coconut oil (refined or unrefined is okay)
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 4 Tbsp of aquafaba (the liquid in a can of chickpeas)

For the frosting, you’ll also need:

• 3 Tbsp strawberry purée
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup coconut oil

Flour

I used all-purpose flour in this recipe (wheat flour). You could use a gluten-free flour mix instead of wheat flour, although I haven’t tried it myself.

Sugar

I did use refined sugar to make these strawberry cupcakes. In my opinion, the sweetness is nice for special occasions but next time I make them, I’ll try using a non-sugar sweetener like agave syrup.

Baking Soda

The baking soda helps the cupcakes rise and get fluffy in the oven. My cupcakes rose a LOT – I filled the muffin tins about 1/4″ or 1/2 cm below the edge of the muffin cups.

Salt

A little bit of salt helps bring out the strawberry flavors.

Strawberry Purée

As I mentioned before, to make the strawberry purée all you need are fresh strawberries. I cut off any unripe parts of the strawberry where it was still green or white.

Put the strawberries in a blender or a food processor without any extra water. They will make a deliciously sweet & tart purée. If you don’t have a blender, you could also try chopping the strawberries up finely and then mashing them up with a potato masher.

Coconut Oil

I used coconut oil in this recipe because it has a bright taste that goes well with strawberries. Actually, after baking the strawberry cupcakes, I couldn’t really taste any coconut at all.

I used unrefined coconut oil. Refined will also work. If you want to try making this recipe without any oil, you could try replacing the coconut oil with apple sauce.

Apple Cider Vinegar

The ACV helps the cupcakes rise, when it reacts with the baking soda.

Since the reaction doesn’t last indefinitely, it’s important to preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, so that you can quickly put the cupcakes into the oven as soon as they’re in their cupcake molds.

Aquafaba

Aquafaba (from the Latin “water” and “bean”) is simply the gel-like liquid in a can of cooked chickpeas. It’s a wonderful egg substitute that has similar binding qualities to eggs, without the eggy taste.

You can use aquafaba as is or, as I did in this recipe, whip it with your hand mixer until it’s white and foamy, like whipped cream. It helped these cupcakes get super fluffy!

Learn more about aquafaba.

Vegan Strawberry Icing

To make the frosting on these strawberry cupcakes, I used:

• 3 Tbsp strawberry purée
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 1 Tbsp vegan buttery spread (I used Earth Balance original)
• 1 Tbsp non-dairy milk (I used almond milk)

We also topped our cupcakes off with more of those pretty fresh strawberries. Because you can never have too many strawberries!

See more vegan dessert ideas here!

Instant Pot Cheesecake | Vegan Muffins | Vegan Ice Cream