The Story:
Whenever I move from city to city, there are a few things I look for. The closest In-N-Out, Costco, WinCo and Trader Joe’s.
In-N-Out and their Double-Doubles bring a lot of love into my life. At the end of a long day in the kitchen all I want is to hit the drive-thru. Costco is where I get my butter, cream cheese, sour cream and powdered sugar in bulk. Can’t bake without it and I might as well get some free samples while I shop! WinCo is just the best grocery store on the planet and the bargain bin section is amazing. Trader Joe’s is my home away from home. All my special snacks are there! My olive oil popcorn, my salted chocolate almonds, my bar of chocolate with macadamia nuts…mmmm. And my favorite baking goodies are there too! (Like my freeze dried berries.) And who doesn’t love the Trader Joe’s “vibe” with the Hawaiian shirts and lies? It’s like a mini vaca when you walk in the store!
Sadly, In-N-Out and WinCo are west coast specials, so I’ll have to live without them for a few months. But me and Trader Joe’s will still be going strong!
Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes
Ingredients
Cake:
- 1 Box Devil’s Food Cake Mix
- 3 eggs
- ½ C. oil
- ¾ C. buttermilk
- ½ C. sour cream
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 1/3 C. fresh raspberries
Raspberry Buttercream:
- 1.2 oz. pkg. of freeze dried raspberries I get mine from Trader Joe's
- 1 C. butter softened
- 4-5 C. powdered sugar
- 1 Tbsp. milk if needed
Instructions
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1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line pans with cupcake liners.
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2. Sift cake mix into a small bowl and set aside.
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3. In a large bowl, use a whisk to combine eggs, oil, buttermilk, sour cream and vanilla extract.
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4. Add cake mix and stir until smooth.
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5. Fold in raspberries. (If your raspberries are big, roughly chop them before adding them to your batter.)
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6. Fill cupcake liners ¾ full and bake for 15-20 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean.
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7. Raspberry Prep: Place your freeze dried raspberries in a food processor and pulverize them. When you take them out, you will still see the seeds. Use a fine sifter to sift out the seeds, them throw them away. Keep what went through the sifter for the buttercream.
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8. Buttercream: Beat butter for 2 minutes. Scrap down the sides of the bowl, add your pulverized freeze dried raspberries and beat again. Slowly add powdered sugar until you reach your desired consistency. Add milk if the buttercream becomes too stiff.
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9. Pipe buttercream onto cooled cupcakes and finish with a fresh raspberry.
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Piping Tip: Ateco #846
Dear Lizzy,
I so much want to try some of your cupcake recipes. However, I prefer to bake them from scratch because of several reasons: (i) I prefer fresh ingredients, (ii) where I live it’s not always easy to find the specific cake mix, and (iii) even if the specific cake mix is available it usually is very expensive as it’s an imported product.
So for these reasons I do hope that you would consider creating new cupcake recipes without using cake mix.
Thanks & best regards,
Carol Poluan, Indonesia
Carol, I have a white cake mix substitute recipe! I’ll post it below and you can always use that in place of a cake mix. In the next few weeks I’ll have a chocolate cake mix substitute recipe up as well 🙂
http://www.yourcupofcake.com/2013/01/white-cake-mix-substitute-recipe.html
Hi Lizzy – awesome sounding recipe, as usual. I just bought three more of your cupcake cookbooks and distributed them to my three nieces. One of them started baking from it a few hours after receiving it! They all have school-age kids who surprise their moms with bake sale requests at the 11th hour so your cookbook will be a lifesaver!
Thanks and I look forward to your next cookbook!
Bev.
P.S. Did the Speculous products I sent actually make it into a recipe or did you eat it!!!? Can’t blame you if you ate it…it’s awesome, addictive stuff!
So happy to hear about your nieces. I did eat some of the Speculous, but I have some more here I will be using soon. I just nee to finish up my cookbook right now, things have been really crazy lately 🙂 Thanks Beverly!
I love the idea of using freeze dried raspberries! My buttercream always goes runny if I want to add enough fresh fruit to have it taste like the actual fruit. Where did you get the liners for your cupcakes?
I got these liners from a grocery store. They were lined with foil so they kept their color when they baked, but foil liners sometimes pull away from the cake so it cake be risky. Look for “greaseproof” liners and you will be fine!
Is it ok to still have some seeds in the frosting? I’ve put the raspberries through 2 different sifters and can’t get all the seeds out.
I never got all the seeds out either. As long as you get most of them out, you’re good!
Lizzy, you are such an inspiration.I love all your recipes. I have a quick question, is buttercream frosting suppose to be on the thicker side. I am never sure, my consistency , I don’t think is ever right. Is there a way to make it perfect, any tips..thank you so much
Tricia
I will be posting a Buttercream post soon. But it cake be as thick or as thin as you want it to be! Just add a Tablespoon of milk to thin it out!
Hi Lizzy
I am a bit scared to try this recipe as I don’t like the buttercreams made with butter only, I prefer with the ones with cream cheese or whipped cream… since I never used freeze dried raspberries do you think it would work with either the whipped cream or cream cheese?
you can use cream cheese and butter! That will work GREAT!
Hi Lizzie
Can you please let me know if we can store this in the refrigerator? I’ve read several websites and all mentioned it’s not good to store raspberry buttercream as it’ll get mushy – is this the case for you? x
I’ve stored the frosting just fine in the fridge, but if you are trying to keep the whole cupcake… freeze it! it will stay more fresh!
What is C. oil
C. stands for “cup”
Hi Lizzie,
I love your blog/website! Tons of delicious treats to try to make!
With this raspberry buttercream, would it make a difference if I would use fresh raspberries (I plan to mash them before mixing in into the buttercream)? Thanks so much, I look forward hearing from you 🙂
Anna
You just won’t get as much flavor! The fresh berries have a lot of liquid, so you can’t add too much or your frosting will be runny. The freeze-dried stuff has just the flavor and color from the berries, which is why I love it.
Lizzy, your book, Your Cup of Cake, is marvelous! I won’t buy a cookbook that does not have great pictures and yours is over the moon!
This weekend I am making 3 of your cupcake recipes for an event. I have experienced problems with buttercream holding it’s shape as I refuse to use Crisco. I think I have let the butter and/or cream cheese sit out on the counter too long. Can I take it straight from the frig to the mixer? Your input would be greatly appreciated!
Cream cheese you can take right from the fridge, butter should sit out over night though!
Lizzy, thank you for your inspiration and instruction! The accolades I have received for the cupcakes, your cupcakes, have been overwhelming! I am excited to try more of your wonderful recipes. Many thanks!
I just wanted to verify for the buttercream icing – if it’s 1.2 oz or 12 oz of freeze dried raspberries? Thank you! (Love all your recipes, by the way!)
1.2 oz! That’s the size of Trader Joe’s packages for freeze dried fruit!
Yｅs! Finally sometһing aƅout then.
thats really, very nice.
Thnkyou!