Vegan Strawberry Lemon Cupcakes (& VIDEO)

These Vegan Strawberry Lemon Cupcakes are officially my FAVORITE cupcake recipe for spring! This small-batch recipe makes 5-6 perfectly fluffy cupcakes and is topped with those most luscious and fluffy vegan strawberry buttercream frosting. I truly can’t wait for you to make these moist, flavorful, and downright delicious vegan cupcakes!

Last year, I made Earl Grey Cupcakes with Vegan Blueberry Frosting and you all went a bit crazy over them! I figured this year I’d bring another cupcake to the mix with a new fruit-flavored frosting filled with fresh strawberries. Plus, the base of this cupcake recipe is based off my favorite Lemon Olive Oil cupcakes for a delicious strawberry filled lemon cupcake recipe.

How to make strawberry lemon cupcakes

Without further ado, let’s jump into the ingredients and steps to make these absolutely decadent cupcakes.

Ingredients for cupcakes:

• Strawberry purée

This is essentially strawberries blended up until they resemble a smooth paste. It allows you to evenly infuse the cupcakes with strawberry flavor without any large chunks. While I like chunks of fruit in muffin recipes, for these vegan strawberry cupcakes you want a smooth batter.

• Olive Oil

I truly LOVE the moist texture olive oil gives cupcakes. However, any liquid vegetable oil will work such as avocado oil or grapeseed oil. I don’t love coconut oil in cupcakes (it can clump up), but if you do use it make sure to melt it before adding it so it blends in.

• Vanilla extract

• Lemon zest & lemon juice

Make sure it’s fresh for the best flavor! This is also a great time to mention that lemon is crucial to this recipe to balance out the 1/8 tsp of baking soda (it needs an acid to react with). If for any reason you don’t have lemon, sub for lime juice 1:1 or replace with 1/2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar.

• Oat milk

I used oat milk to keep these cupcakes completely nut-free. However, any plant-based milk works. Almond, rice, soy, cashew all work great! The only milk that *may* be a bit too thick for cupcakes is canned coconut milk because of the extra fat. If all you have on hand is canned coconut milk I recommend using 1 Tbsp coconut milk and filling the remainder of the 1/3 cup with water for a better consistency.

• Organic Sugar

Make sure it’s vegan and is not processed with bone char!

• Pastry Flour

You may have noticed that 90% of my cupcake & cake recipes on SGTO call for pastry flour. That is because it makes a MUCH more tender and light cupcake. If you don’t have pastry flour you can use the equivalent gram measurement in all-purpose flour and add in 1 Tbsp of cornstarch for a similar texture.

• Baking powder & baking soda
• Salt

Don’t skip the salt! It brings out the sweetness in any baked good and is necessary for this recipe.

Baking the cupcakes

After you’ve mixed & assembled all the ingredients, just add to a muffin tin with cupcake liners. Cupcake liners are super important to use when baking cupcakes as the batter is pretty delicate and needs this added structure. I use If you Care muffin liners and love them because they are unbleached and compostable!

After you’ve filled the cupcake liners about 3/4 cup full with batter, let the batter rest and preheat the oven. This extra resting time helps the cupcakes get fluffier! While I made 6 cupcakes, if you want even higher cupcakes, split the batter between 5-6 cupcakes. It is worth noting that the cupcakes will be a bit higher and fluffier if you spread them between 5 cupcakes vs. 6.

Then bake at 350F for 22-24 minutes, remove, and let cool completely before frosting.

How to make vegan strawberry buttercream frosting

This strawberry frosting could not be easier to make and it only contains 4 simple ingredients- yay!!

Ingredients:

• Vegan Butter (I use Miyokos or Earth Balance)
• Shortening (I use Spectrum Organics, but if you do not want to use palm oil, you can replace 1:1 with Miyokos vegan butter)
• Strawberry purée (just fresh blended strawberries!)
• Organic powdered sugar

When making vegan frosting, the first step is to cream the cold butter and shortening together. This helps to remove any clumps in the frosting and whip them to the right texture.

Next up, add in that strawberry purée and whip together.

Last up, gradually add in the sifted powdered sugar.

It is SUPER important to sift your powdered sugar if you don’t want any clumps in the frosting. I can’t stress this enough so PLEASE don’t skip sifting if you want a pretty & smooth frosting. Also, I always give a range for powdered sugar because I don’t like very sweet frosting. However, I know some people do, so please use the higher measurement recommended for a sweeter frosting.

To pipe the frosting, add it to a piping bag with your preferred piping tip. If the frosting has gotten too soft, add the piping bag full of frosting to the fridge for around 5 minutes and you will have perfect frosting ready to be piped!

As you can see this recipe makes a pretty large amount of frosting (bite shot below for reference). If you don’t like that much frosting, simply cut the frosting recipe in half!

How to store vegan cupcakes

While this is a small batch cupcake recipe that makes 6 cupcakes, I totally get that you may have leftovers!

Please, do not store homemade cupcakes or cake in the fridge as it really dries them out.

Instead, unfrosted cupcakes can be wrapped in plastic wrap or stored between sheets of parchment paper in a closed container at room temperature for 2-3 days. 

If you frosted the cupcakes already, they store beautifully in the freezer. I seriously freeze frosted cupcakes all the time and it’s so easy to enjoy them later! Just add them to a closed container and be careful not to squish the frosting. Then, store for up to 3 months. When you’re ready to eat, just let them defrost at room temperature and then dig in. YUM!

I’m SO excited to be sharing another fruit-filled cupcake recipe with you all and hope it brings you some bright & cheery spring joy. I truly love these Vegan Strawberry Lemon Cupcakes made from scratch and hope you find them just as delicious as I do!

-TSG

Looking for more vegan cupcake & cake recipes? Check out these other SGTO favorites:

Cardamom Vanilla Cupcakes with Rose Frosting

Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes

Blood Orange Chocolate Olive Oil Cake

Red Velvet Cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Vanilla berry cupcakes