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I pumped 1 whole cup of Greek yogurt into these cupcakes and they are so fluffy and delicious I can hardly sit still. These cupcakes are just as quick to whip up as boxed cupcakes but they taste so much better!
I’ve spent the past few days developing (eating) and testing this yogurt cupcake recipe. It’s finally ready to be shared with the world. These are going into my cupcake hall of fame; among my top 4 (ok, you got me. Maybe I only have 4 cupcake recipes posted. Quality over quantity folks) ;).
Now lets talk about the easy and scrumptious blackberry frosting. On second thought, a picture is worth a thousand words. Let your eyes wander back to the top of the screen. Oh. Yeah ;).
*Makes 12 muffin-top cupcakes or 15 boring regular ones*
Cupcake Ingredients:
1 2/3 cups cake flour *measured correctly (click for a quick video on how to make cake flour!)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
6 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temp (cut into 6-8 pieces)
1 large egg, room temp
1 large egg white, room temp
1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup plain Greek Yogurt (I used the regular, full fat version)
Frosting Ingredients:
1 stick unsalted butter, soft at room temp
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
8 oz (1 stick) cream cheese, softened to room temp and cut into 8 pieces
1/2 cup (about 15) Blackberries to puree + 12 blackberries for garnish
How to make Greek Yogurt Cupcakes:
Line a 12-count cupcake pan with paper liners. Preheat Oven to 350˚F.
1. In the bowl of an electric mixer, whisk together your dry ingredients: 1 2/3 cups cake flour, 1 cup granulated sugar, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp salt until well combined. Add in 6 Tbsp softened butter and with your wire whisk on med/low speed, mix for about 3-4 min or until fine crumbs form.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together your wet ingredients until combined: 1 egg, 1 large egg white, 1 cup plain greek yogurt and 1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk together on med speed until smooth (2 min). The batter will be thick and still have tiny lumps. Fill each paper liner a little more than 1/2 full if you want 15 regular cupcakes. Fill 2/3 full if you want 12 cupcakes with muffin tops like what you see in the pictures.
Bake at 350˚F for 18-20 minutes. When finished, a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcake should come out clean. Remove cupcakes to a wire rack and let cool to room temp.
How to Make Blackberry Frosting:
1. Puree blackberries in a small food processor, or Immersion Hand Blender, then strain them through a fine mesh Strainer, pushing them through with a spatula until all you have left in the strainer is seeds. Discard seeds and set the puree aside.
2. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, mix the 1 stick of softened butter with 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar and salt on low speed or until combined, scraping as necessary ~ 2 min. Don’t start on high speed or you will be surrounded in a cloud of powdered sugar (lessons learned).
It may seem like it won’t come together at first, but it will. Give it a little time ;). Once the mixture is combined, increase speed to medium-high and beat until the cream is pale and fluffy (2-3 min)
3. Add cream cheese 1-piece at a time and mix until combined. Once all of the cream cheese is mixed in, continue to beat 2 more minutes until fluffy, scraping down the bowl as necessary. You need your frosting to be super smooth without any globs of cream cheese or they will get stuck in the piping star, so if you see globs, keep mixing.
Next, pour in your blackberry puree and continue mixing until well incorporated. Refrigerate frosting 10 minutes before piping it onto the cupcakes.
How to Decorate the Blackberry Cupcakes:
1. Once your cupcakes are cooled to room temp, you can decorate them. I used a WILTON 2D (closed-star) frosting tip with a piping bag to frost the tops working from the outside in and up. There’s enough frosting to be generous with each cupcake. You’re welcome ;).
Top with a fresh blackberry if desired and serve. They refrigerate really well and stay fluffy even right out of the fridge.
Greek Yogurt Cupcakes with Blackberry Frosting
Ingredients
Cupcake Ingredients:
- 1 2/3 cups cake flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 6 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temp (cut into 6-8 pieces)
- 1 large egg, room temp
- 1 large egg white, room temp
- 1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup plain Greek Yogurt, I used the regular, full fat version
Frosting Ingredients:
- 1 stick unsalted butter, soft at room temp
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1/8 tsp fine sea salt
- 8 oz 1 stick cream cheese, softened to room temp and cut into 8 pieces
- 1/2 cup about 15 Blackberries to puree + 12 blackberries for garnish
Instructions
How to make the Cupcakes:
- Line a 12-count cupcake pan with paper liners. Preheat Oven to 350˚F.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, whisk together your dry ingredients: 1 2/3 cups cake flour, 1 cup granulated sugar, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp salt until well combined. Add in 6 Tbsp softened butter and with your wire whisk on med/low speed, mix for about 3-4 min or until fine crumbs form.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together your wet ingredients until combined: 1 egg, 1 large egg white, 1 cup plain greek yogurt and 1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk together on med speed until smooth (2 min). The batter will be thick and still have tiny lumps.
- Fill each paper liner a little more than 1/2 full if you want 15 regular cupcakes. Fill 2/3 full if you want 12 cupcakes with muffin tops like what you see in the pictures. Bake at 350˚F for 18-20 minutes. When finished, a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcake should come out clean. Remove cupcakes to a wire rack and let cool to room temp.
How to Make Frosting:
- Puree blackberries in a small food processor, or Immersion Hand Blender, then strain them through a fine mesh strainer, pushing them through with a spatula until all you have left in the strainer is seeds. Discard seeds and set the puree aside.
- In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, mix the 1 stick of softened butter with 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar and salt on low speed or until combined, scraping as necessary ~ 2 min. Don’t start on high speed or you will be surrounded in a cloud of powdered sugar (lessons learned). It may seem like it won't come together at first, but it will. Give it a little time ;). Once the mixture is combined, increase speed to medium-high and beat until the cream is pale and fluffy (2-3 min).
- Add cream cheese 1-piece at a time and mix until combined. Once all of the cream cheese is mixed in, continue to beat 2 more minutes until fluffy, scraping down the bowl as necessary. You need your frosting to be super smooth without any globs of cream cheese or they will get stuck in the piping star, so if you see globs, keep mixing.
- Pour blackberry puree over frosting and continue mixing until well incorporated. Refrigerate frosting 10 minutes before piping it onto the cupcakes.
How to Decorate the Blackberry Cupcakes:
- Once your cupcakes are cooled to room temp, you can decorate them. I used a WILTON 2D (closed-star) frosting tip with a piping bag to frost the tops working from the outside in and up. There's enough frosting to be generous with each cupcake. You're welcome ;). Top with a fresh blackberry if desired and serve.
Love you all and I know you’ll LOVE these cupcakes! Thanks in advance for sharing these goodies on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and everywhere else you frequent. Thank YOU in general for making this blog great. I’m living my dream because of you. Seriously, you are amazing friends!
-Natasha 🙂
Hi!
Somewhere along the way I measured cake flour wrong and ended up with a very thick cupcake batter…. how to save it? More yogurt? 🙁
Hi Linda, it’s hard to say without seeing your batter. It is supposed to be fairly thick as you can see in the photo under step 4. Is yours much thicker than that?
Followed measurements but still ended up with thinner frosting so it just runs of the cupcake.. What I am doing wrong? thanks
Hi Tanya, it might be due to having the ingredients over softened or too warm. It helps to start out with butter that hasn’t been on the counter too long – typically about 60 minutes (depending on room temperature), and about the same for cream cheese.
Hi Natasha, can I use other than Greek Yogurt? And also, can I add a teaspoon of a syrup from cherry preserve into the frosting to avoid cooking the fresh berries? I tried this frosting before with your blackberry cake, it turned out great, it is just to save some time. Thanks.
Hi Olga, I haven’t tried that but I think the cherry preserve could work! 🙂 I haven’t tested anything besides Greek yogurt in this particular cake so I can’t really make a recommendation without testing it first. Sorry I can’t be more helpful.
Delicious!!! I made these cupcakes last year for my son’s birthday and everybody loved it! I will try gluten free version this year and share the result:) Natasha, thank you very much for sharing your recipes. Very fun to watch your videos.
-Nina
You’re welcome Nina! Thank you for sharing your great review!!
As I promised leaving my review for Gluten free cupcakes. They turned our delicious. I used cup4cup flour and put 2 teaspoons of backing powder (no baking soda). As soon as dough is ready it should go to the oven. I waited for the second set of the cupcakes and they did not puffed out as much. Maybe it is true for gluten cupcakes as well, I don’t know. I will definitely share this recipe with ones who cannot have gluten in their lives.
Made these delicious cupcakes for Valentine’s Day this year. I got to say, coming from someone who hates yogurt, these were absolutely delicious. And the best part was how refreshing and light they were. This was my first time baking cupcakes and I succeeded so if you’re second guessing your abilities I say go for it!
Awesome! I’m so happy to hear how much you love them!! Thanks for sharing!
How many calories in one muffin???
Hi Niki, I don’t typically have calorie counts because of the time constraint that I have. I really need to hire some help to do that for us! When I need a quick answer though; I use Caloriecount.com (their recipe analyzer is free).
Thank you!
Hi Natasha! Looks very good! Wanna make them with raspberries, will it be good? And also can I make it with frozen raspberries, the ones sold at the store?
Thank you!
Hi Julie I think that should work fine, but keep in mind raspberries can be juicier than blackberries so add the syrup to the frosting a little bit at a time so it doesn’t water down the cream.
Hi, so I’m doing the cupcakes right now and do I have to put fine sea salt? Because I forgot to buy it.
Ok so I did it and the frosting turned out watery. But I did add the raspberry syrup a little bit at a time to the frosting. I just didn’t add the fine sea salt. Do u know what I did wrong? I can send you a pic on how they look..?
Hi Julie, did you use the same proportions of all of the ingredients? Was it watery before adding the syrup or did it get watery as you added it?
Hi Julie, you can use regular salt 🙂
Oh wow. I didn’t add salt to the frosting at all. Does it change the taste of it?
It counters the sweetness a little. I do like it in the frosting but it will still work without it.
Yes, it got watery when I started adding the syrup. But I added it slowly. And the frosting on the cupcakes turned really funny not how its on yours
It may be that you added too much syrup. Did you add the full amount?
I added a bit more syrup than you said. I added about 1 cup of them. Because I thought the frosting will turn thicker and the color will change a bit more. So you added 1/2 a cup, right?
Hi Julie, that would definitely be the reason why the frosting was too loose. The syrup will make the frosting more liquid as you add more.
I need cupcakes for Sunday. Could I make the frosting on Saturday, put it in the fridge, and pipe onto cupcakes on Sunday?
Hi, I think it’s easiest to pipe the same day it’s made. If you have difficulty piping the frosting after refrigeration, let it sit at room temp for a 30 minutes or until softened, then fluff it up with a spatula and pipe. You could also pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes and then cover and refrigerate the cupcakes overnight and serve the following day.
Are these able to be frozen.
I haven’t tried freezing them but the cupcake itself probably freezes really well. I’m not sure about the frosting because I haven’t tested it my self.
if not using large eggs but medium has it got any different
Hi Anneli, I haven’t tested it with medium eggs but usually, yes you would have to make some modifications to the recipe with a lesser egg volume. Without testing it, I can’t say for sure how it would affect the outcome, but because there isn’t a ton of egg in this recipe, if all I had were medium eggs, I would still try using them.
I wanted to make these as mini cupcakes instead. Do you know if the temperature and time needs to be adjusted?
Hi Donna, for mini cupcakes, bake 10 minutes.
Hello! I made this today! The cupcake is very fluffy and soft! Thank you <3
Aini, thank you for the nice review and you are welcome 😁.
Everything went well, the butter cream and cheese, creamed light and fluffy ….until I added the blackberries then it curdled. There’s nothing I can do but start again…why did it curdle I followed the recipe step by step. They are for a village show. Also whenever I make cupcake they stick to the papers. Anything I can make from the curdled cream. I hate wasting all those ingredients.
HI Jackie, I’ve never had that happen before with the curdling. Did you try continuing to beat to incorporate the blackberry syrup? Did you change or add anything in the recipe?
I have made these a few times and love them, but really would like to make frosting pink for daughters birthday! Any advice? No food coloring and want it a soft pink! Strawberries? Raspberries?
I would suggest raspberries. I think that would work best 🙂
They were amazing! Thanks for writing clear instructions and add beautiful pictures =)
Thank you Karla, I’m glad you enjoyed them 😁.
These are lovely. I love how fluffy and light they were. Thank you!
Betty, I’m so happy to hear that! Thank you for sharing your great review!
Yum yum, that’s purdy, I wonna eat me some a that.
Thank you 🙂
You’re welcome.
What fbrand of flour do you use to make the cupcakes ?? Can i use the self rising aunt jemima flour instead ??
Hi Fressia, I use an organic brand from Costco. It’s just a plain all-purpose flour. I haven’t tested this recipe with self rising flour so I don’t know if it would work well or not. Self rising flour has a leavening agent in it already (baking powder) so if using, you probably want to avoid the baking powder but I’m not sure if the baking soda amount needs to be adjusted or not. I just haven’t tested it to know. I hope that’s helpful if you do decide to do some testing! 🙂
Hi Natasha!
I absolutely loved your perfect vanilla cupcakes recipe (so far my no1!). Today I’m going to try this one. I just have one question, how much in grams is the soft cheese in your recipe? Is it 125?
Thanks!
Anna recipe calls for 225 grams of cream cheese. Hope this helps 😀.
I made this recipe into a 9 inch round cake and cut it in half the . It created a rounded top that I cut straight just. Same 350 temperature, I baked for about 15 minutes to check it and then added 5 more minutes and cake was ready. But I would kee checking to make sure you don’t over bake it. I get so many compliments when I turn it into a cake 🙂
I love that you were able to turn it into a cake! If you posted a picture of it somewhere, I’d love to see it!
Could I add 1.5 tsp of vanilla extract to the recipe without compromising the texture? Thanks!
Hi Cheryl, 1/2 Tbsp is equivalent to 1.5 tsp so yes that would be fine 🙂
Just a question! I followed the ingredients except added a bit more yogurt and subbed the butter for coconut oil. My cakes came out very dense and chewy do you think the oil substitute is why? I also added sprinkles to make it funfetti 🙂
Thank you! If interested my blog is http://theadventuresofjusttryingtobebetty.blogspot.com/?m=1
Hi Katie, these are normally supposed to be very very soft and fluffy. I haven’t tried substituting for coconut oil so if everything else was the same, that may be the reason. Also, how much more yogurt did you use? Since baking is so much a science, and even a small detail can turn a recipe a different direction, it’s difficult to say but my guess is the oil did it.