Roasted Strawberry Chocolate Cupcakes

Individual roasted strawberry chocolate cupcakes flavoured with intense roasted strawberry purée. Icing is optional, but fresh cream mixed with roasted strawberry purée is fantastic.

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When Kerry announced the theme for this month’s We Should Cocoa was going to be cupcakes, I was initially a little stumped. After all I’ve made many chocolate cupcakes in my time and I was wondering what I could do that would be a little different.

Roasted Strawberry Chocolate Cupcakes

A trip to our local co-op sorted me out. I spotted some British strawberries that were going at half price as they were a little past their best. And the seed was sown. June is strawberry season after all. Initially, I thought I’d have to pair them with white chocolate as the flavour might be lost in dark chocolate, but then I remembered the roasted strawberry ice-cream I made a couple of years ago.

Roasted strawberries have a really intense flavour. So I reckoned they could easily stand up to the robust earthy notes of dark chocolate. How right I was.

As you will know if you’ve made my easy strawberry ice cream, strawberries and balsamic make a very good match indeed. So these strawberries are coated in balsamic vinegar before roasting.

I’ve made white chocolate strawberry cupcakes too and they are also delicious. But they are sweeter. Just swap the dark chocolate for white chocolate.

Roasted Strawberry Chocolate Cupcakes: Step-byStep

These roasted strawberry chocolate cupcakes are made with real chocolate rather than cocoa powder. But the ingredient that makes them extra special is the roasted strawberries.

The strawberries take about forty minutes to roast in the oven. So you will need to plan a bit of extra time for making these little cakes.

1. Roast strawberries

Set the oven to 150℃ (130℃ fan, 300℉, Gas).

Wash and hull the strawberries, then place them in a single layer in roasting tin. Pour balsamic vinegar over the top and give the tin a good shake so that all of the strawberries are coated.

Place the roasting tin in the oven and roast for forty minutes. Take a look after twenty minutes and give the pan another shake. The longer the strawberries roast, the more intense their flavour will be. But be careful not to burn them.

2. Blitz strawberries

Transfer the strawberries to a jug and blitz them into a purée with a stick blender*.

3. Grate chocolate

You can either buy ground chocolate for these cakes or grate your own. If you use drinking chocolate, make sure it’s 100% pure chocolate. I’ve used 70% Mortimer chocolate* in the past and it’s fantastic for baking. This time, however, I grated my own 70% chocolate.

Ground chocolate produces a smoother more rounded smoother flavour, but grated gives bursts of chocolatey flavour in each mouthful. Both are good, but subtly different.

4. Cream butter and sugar

It’s important that your butter is already soft before you start mixing it into the sugar. Too many times I’ve had to contend with cold, hard butter and it’s no fun. So make sure you take the butter out of the fridge at least thirty minutes before you need it.

Beat the butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon until it’s really soft, pale in colour and fluffy in texture. This is known as creaming. If you don’t fancy doing this by hand, by all means use electric hand beaters* or a stand mixer.

5. Add remaining ingredients

Beat in the eggs, one by one. The last time I made these, I used a turkey egg instead of hens eggs. If I can get them, I use duck eggs, which are excellent for baking.

Sift in the flour along with baking powder and gently stir in along with the chocolate.

Finally, stir in the roasted strawberry purée.

6. Bake the cakes

Line twelve muffin holes with paper cases, then divide the cake batter between them.

Place in the middle of a hot oven and bake for twenty to twenty five minutes. See recipe card below for details.

Turn the cakes out of the moulds and onto a wire rack. Leave to cool whilst you get on with making the icing.

Roasted Strawberry Cream Icing

I’m made many attempt at strawberry buttercream and it’s failed every time. I’ve tried Italian buttercream, ordinary buttercream and cream cheese buttercream. I think these roasted strawberry chocolate cupcakes would taste fantastic with a cream cheese icing.

However, I reckon the only way it will ever work is to mix in colossal amounts of icing sugar. I’m not prepared to do that, so I now stick to a whipped fresh cream icing instead. It’s really delicious and not sickly sweet. The only trouble is, it doesn’t keep very well. This means, once you’ve iced the cakes, they need to be consumed within twenty four hours. This may not, of course, be a problem.

You could keep the iced cakes in the fridge, but I find the cold of the fridge usually spoils the texture of cakes. 

The roasted strawberry cream icing is ever so easy to make. Just whip up double cream with some icing sugar until soft peaks form. Then fold in some of the fabulous roasted strawberry purée.

Don’t worry about getting your electric whisk out. It’s easy to whip the cream by hand as the icing sugar hugely speeds up the process.

Use a small palette knife or the back of a spoon to swirl the cream over the tops of the cakes. Do make sure they’re cool before doing this or the heat might cause the cream to collapse.

Other Fruit Cupcake Recipes You Might Like

• Apple crumble & custard cakes
• Blueberry cupcakes (sugar-free)
• Lemon & white chocolate cupcakes
• Mini orange cakes
• Raspberry & white chocolate cupcakes

Keep in Touch

Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make these roasted strawberry chocolate cupcakes, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.

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If you’d like more strawberry recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious and nutritious, of course.

Choclette x

Roasted Strawberry Chocolate Cupcakes. PIN IT.

Roasted Strawberry Chocolate Cupcakes – The Recipe

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5 from 2 votes

Roasted Strawberry Chocolate Cakes

Individual chocolate cakes flavoured with intense roasted strawberry purée. Icing is optional, but the suggested roasted strawberry fresh cream one is fantastic.

Cook ModeToggle to keep screen awake

Prep Time30 minutes mins

Cook Time20 minutes mins

Roasting Strawberries40 minutes mins

Total Time1 hour hr 30 minutes mins

Course: Afternoon Tea, Dessert

Cuisine: British

Keyword: cakes, chocolate, cupcakes, strawberries

Servings: 12 cakes

Calories: 196kcal

Author: Choclette @ Tin and Thyme

Ingredients

Strawberry Purée

• 300 g strawberries
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Cakes

• 125 g unsalted butter
• 125 g light muscovado sugar
• 2 large eggs (I've used duck eggs and on another occassion a turkey egg)
• 150 g wholemeal spelt flour
• 50 g 70% chocolate – finely grated (I've grated my own and also used Mortimer pure dark ground chocolate from Ecuador*)
• 1 ½ baking powder
• 4 tbsp strawberry purée

Strawberry Cream Icing

• 150 ml double cream (heavy cream)
• 2 tbsp icing sugar
• 2 tbsp strawberry purée

Metric – US Customary

Instructions

Strawberry Purée

• Wash and hull the strawberries.
• Place in a single layer in roasting dish with the vinegar and roast at 150℃ (130℃ fan, 300℉, Gas ) in the middle of the oven for 40 minutes.
• Allow to cool then blitz with a stick blender.

Cakes

• Cream the butter and sugar together until pale in colour and fluffy in texture.
• Beat in the eggs, one by one, adding a little of the flour if the mixture curdles.
• Sieve in the dry ingredients, along with the chocolate and gently stir until just combined.
• Fold in the strawberry purée.
• Divide the mixture between 12 muffin moulds lined with paper cases.
• Bake at 180℃ (160℃ fan, 350℉, Gas 4) for 20-25 minutes, when the cakes should be well risen and firm to the touch.
• Leave to cool for a few minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Strawberry Cream Icing (optional)

• Pour the cream into a large bowl.
• Sieve the icing sugar into the cream and hand whisk until soft peaks form. Because of the sugar, it doesn't take long to do.
• Gently stir the strawberry purée into the cream, then using a palette knife or piping bag, swirl over the tops of the cooled cakes.
• Decorate with a strawberry slice, if wished.

Notes

For a lighter, but sweeter version, swap the dark chocolate for white chocolate.

Please note: calories and other nutritional information are per serving. They’re approximate and will depend on exact ingredients used. Does not include optional icing.

Nutrition Estimate

Calories: 196kcal | Carbohydrates: 23g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 11g | Saturated Fat: 7g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 3g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 50mg | Sodium: 16mg | Potassium: 111mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 13g | Vitamin A: 303IU | Vitamin C: 10mg | Calcium: 28mg | Iron: 1mg

Tried this recipe?Leave a comment below letting us know how you got on and do share a photo on Instagram. Tag @choclette8 or use hashtag #tinandthyme.

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Thanks to Kerry over at Kerry Cooks for hosting We Should Cocoa. She chose cupcakes, which enabled me to come up with these very tasty cakes. I may have to work on the icing, but the roasted strawberry cake itself needs no improvement.

Muffins, fairy cakes and cupcakes are the theme for Tea Time Treats this month over at Lavender and Lovage. So I’m sending these strawberry cakes off to Karen’s ever groaning tea table.

Anything goes for Simply Eggcellent with the Dashing Dom over at Belleau Kitchen this month. So he’s getting these roasted strawberry cakes with defunct icing.

Midsummer Madness is the theme for Love Cake over at Jibber Jabber UK this month. Well I certainly got mad when I couldn’t get my Italian buttercream to work. And as it was posted on Midsummer’s day and features midsummer roasted strawberries, I reckon this recipe is eminently eligible.

And last but not least, these delicious little cakes go off to Helen at Casa Costello for Bake of the Week.

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