Jam Filled Cupcakes

Fluffy vanilla cupcakes, made from scratch, are topped with creamy buttercream frosting and a secret inside! These Jam Filled Cupcakes are extra special and simple to make.

I’ve been making this jam filled cupcake recipe for a long time! It’s my go-to dessert recipe when it’s someone’s birthday or Mother’s Day, or I just really want to bake something sweet and delicious.

I first shared this recipe back in 2015, and I thought it was about time that these cuties got a fresh photo shoot for the blog. If you’ve been making these cupcakes along with me for all of those years, don’t worry – the recipe is exactly the same!

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

1. Perfect Vanilla Cupcakes – This recipe makes light and fluffy cupcakes with a tender crumb. I add yogurt to my recipe to keep them moist and delicious.
2. Amazing Cupcake Buttercream Frosting – I don’t like overly heavy frostings or ones that are grainy and sugary. This classic buttercream made with powdered sugar is also fluffy and light like the cupcakes are.
3. Easy to Customize – Adding fillings to cupcakes is easier than it may look. Once you get the hang of it, you can experiment with different fillings, flavors, and frostings to make your own fancy cupcake creations!

Ingredients In Jam Filled Cupcakes

Here’s what you need to make these tasty little cakes filled with jam:

• For the Cake: Baking staples of flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, eggs, and butter come together to form the cupcake batter and are fortified with plain yogurt and milk.
• For the Frosting: A bit more unsalted butter, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and milk make the best frosting for cupcakes.
• For the Filling: It’s super simple! Just open up a jar of your favorite strawberry jam! I like to mix it up with a knife to loosen it a bit so it’s easy to spoon into the cakes.

Complete list of ingredients and amounts can be found in the recipe card below.

How To Make Jam Filled Cupcakes

1. Mix the Dry Ingredients: Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a medium mixing bowl.
2. Mix the Wet Ingredients: In another mixing bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add the eggs (one at a time), and the vanilla extract.
3. Combine Wet and Dry: Stir together the dry ingredients and wet ingredients until just combined, then mix in the milk and yogurt. Your cupcake batter will be fairly thick.
4. Bake: Scoop the batter into 16 lined muffin tins, filling each ¾ full. Bake in a preheated 350°F/180°C oven for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

1. Core the Cupcakes, Option 1: There are two easy ways to go about this. First, you can use a small paring knife to cut out a circular space that is about 1 inch wide and 1 inch deep.
2. Core the Cupcakes, Option 2: Another trick is to use the wide end of a jumbo piping tip to create a hole in each cupcake.
3. Fill with Jam: Use a spoon to fill each cavity with about 1 tablespoon of strawberry jam or preserves

How to Make Fluffy Buttercream for Cupcakes

1. Beat softened butter using an electric hand mixer until it’s light and creamy. Then add powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla extract, and whip again until combined.
2. If desired, add a drop or two of pink food coloring! To finish your cupcakes, pipe the frosting over each, and top with fresh strawberries.

Cupcake Recipe Tips

• Start with room-temperature ingredients. Pull out the eggs, milk, yogurt, and butter ahead of time and let them come to room temperature. Cold ingredients won’t incorporate as well into the cake batter.
• Measure Correctly: I have some tricks for making sure you’re measuring your ingredients correctly! When baking, it’s important to accurately measure everything to get the best results in the end.
• Don’t overfill. The cupcake liners should be filled only about ¾ of the way full. You don’t want the cakes to overflow the containers!
• Cool them completely. There’s nothing worse than putting buttercream frosting on a too-warm cupcake. It will sadly melt and slide right off. Be sure that the cupcakes are fully cooled before filling and decorating.
• If you already have a cupcake corer, feel free to use it to remove the centers of the cupcakes, but you don’t really have to go buy one. It’s pretty simple to cut out a hole with a paring knife or the wide end of a jumbo piping tip.
• Sifted powdered sugar will give you the fluffiest frosting without any lumps or clumps.
• The pretty frosting design on these cupcakes was made using a large open star tip. Feel free to use your favorite icing tip, or just generously spread the frosting on each cupcake with a knife or spatula.
• Decorate your jam filled cupcakes with fresh berries, or go classic with some fun rainbow sprinkles!

Storing Tips

After decorating and filling, keep these cupcakes covered and in the refrigerator. They can technically be stored for up to 7 days, but will taste best if enjoyed within a few days.

Individual, unfrosted cupcakes can be wrapped and stored in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Other Tasty Cupcake Fillers

Once you have this process down, it should be pretty easy for you to use it to make cupcakes filled with all sorts of delicious things! Try some of these fun ideas:

• Sprinkles, as I show you in my Pinata Cupcakes recipe.
• Fill cupcakes with Cannoli Dip! Funfetti Cake Batter Dip can go right inside of a cupcake too. It’s like two desserts in one!
• Melted chocolate, hot fudge sauce, peanut butter, or homemade Nutella. Mix nut butter with powdered sugar to make it thicker and sweeter.
• Chocoalte mousse or ganache.
• Custard or pudding.
• Any other type of fruit spread, preserves, or jam.

Recipe FAQs

Yummy Jam Filled Cupcakes with a surprise inside are sure to wow your friends and family on your next special occasion. Be sure to save this tried and tested scratch vanilla cupcake recipe, you’ll want to make it again very soon!

This recipe was first shared on the blog in November 2015, then was updated with new images and helpful tips in April 2023. The recipe remained the same. Here are a couple of old images that you probably recognize!