5 cupcakes in red cupcake wrappers with strawberry buttercream frosting swirled on top with gold, white and pink sprinkles, 5 strawberries in the background one cupcake on a white small cake stand. 3 gold and one pink ball sprinkle on the front left side.

Make the best strawberry buttercream frosting with just the strawberries you have. No freeze dried strawberries are needed. Easy homemade fresh strawberry buttercream frosting is perfect in June when you have baskets of strawberries from the local Y-pick farm. So delicious you don’t even need the vanilla cupcake.

I am not suggesting that you just eat the frosting but it is tempting. Use the homemade fresh strawberry buttercream frosting on soft moist vanilla cupcakes from a box cake mix. The box mix makes these cupcakes quick and easy.

vanilla cupcake in a red and white poka dot wrapper open on a white wood table strawberry swirl frosting with gold and white sprinkles 4 cupcakes in the background.

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Easy Buttercream Frosting Decorations

My go-to decorations for cupcakes are sprinkles. Add beautiful pink pastel sprinkles for the perfect party cupcake. There are so many fun easy decorating ideas when you start with a box cake mix. You can get creative with decorating with strawberry buttercream icing. Just remember to have a medium to large tip opening. You are using fresh strawberries made into a puree and you may have a seed or two.

For a super easy cupcake decorating idea use a strong ziplock bag with just the tip cut off. This simple cupcake decorating technique works well with homemade strawberry frosting. The cupcakes taste so good that they will not last long enough for anyone to notice if you are not the best at decorating.

Icing tips are also a fun way to make cupcakes special. They are so easy to find in any big box store or a variety of box set on Amazon. Sometimes the simplest is the best. I love the basic swirl tip and the bigger the better. I would not recommend for this strawberry frosting that you use the delicate Russian tips.

6 vanilla cupcakes in red or red and white poke dot wrappers with pink strawberry swirled buttercream frosting with white pink and gold ball sprinkles on a white table. with 2 whole strawberries on the right side and 3 while strawberries in the back.

What Cupcake to Pare with Strawberry Buttercream Frosting?

I have made these fun Strawberry Buttercream frosted cupcakes with three different cake mixes. I am going to tell you about my experience with all 3. Keep in mind that regardless of what I thought of the different recipes my family ate them all up in a 24 hours period regardless of the configuration.

First, you may want to use a specialty Strawberry flavored box cake mix. There are cake mixes that are strawberry flavored and this makes for a beautiful strawberry frosted strawberry cupcake. They make a very pretty cupcake. From my point of view, they were delicious and oh so pretty. They also had a super-strong strawberry flavor that for me overpowered the homemade fresh strawberry frosting flavor.

The second batch of cupcakes I made from a box mix was with a basic white box cake mix. Soft moist, and so pretty with the white cupcake and the rich pink frosting. Delicious and did not cover up the rich smooth strawberry buttercream frosting flavor. The richness of the fresh strawberry flavor shined with this combination. Again gone by the next day.

The last combination of homemade strawberry buttercream frosting and a vanilla cupcake from a box mix was with the Duncan Hines Signature French Vanilla Cake Mix. This was my favorite. The sweet taste of the strawberries, the pale pink of the frosting, and the depth of the vanilla flavor were perfect. So delicious and pretty I took them to our card party monthly dinner. None of my friends turned me down when I packaged up extras for my friends to take home.

3 vanilla cupcakes in red wrappers swirled strawberry frosting on top with white, gold pink sprinkles, on strawberry on the right and three in the back ground.

How to Make Strawbery Buttercream without Freeze Dried Strawberries?

Wash and remove the tops of the strawberries.
In a food processor or blender puree until smooth.
In a small saucepan heat and reduce the strawberry puree to about half of the original. You want a reduction of about 1/2 of a cup when done.
Cool completely, you can up the strawberry puree in the freezer or fridge to get the mixture to room temperature.
Next, take one cup of room temperature butter, and in a stand mixer or hand mixer, beat until smooth and creamy.
Add the strawberry puree and beat on low until smooth.
Add slowly a half of a cup of the powdered sugar at a time with the mixer on low. Add as much powdered sugar or less depending on how much liquid was in the strawberry puree. If needed add more sugar.
You want the frosting to be firm enough to stand up not the cupcake but smooth enough to be able to pipe out of a piping tip.
Use a large opening swirl tip for the look in the images.
Insert the piping tip into a large piping bag and fill it with the frosting.
Decorate the cupcakes with the frosting and add sprinkles.