"Less Mess" Neapolitan Cupcakes Recipe

When it comes to culinary innovation, Naples, Italy, is second to none. Not only can it boast its own unique Neapolitan pizza, but was also the birthplace of the simple aglio e olio style of pasta. We'd argue, however, that the region's greatest contribution lies in the field of desserts since a 17th-century Neapolitan chef was the first to record a recipe for what evolved into modern-day sorbet or ice cream. Some Italian immigrants, upon arriving in America, set up as ice cream vendors, but back in the 19^th century, any flavor of ice cream they sold was referred to as "Neapolitan." Today, however, the term is reserved for the chocolate-vanilla-strawberry combo that is echoed in these cupcakes. As developer Jessica Morone says of this triple-threat cupcake recipe, "This is just like the ice cream; you don't have to choose a favorite flavor because you get all of them in one!" 

While the cupcakes have both chocolate and vanilla layers, the cherry— or rather, the berry — on top is the icing. Morone says it's her favorite part because it tastes just like strawberry ice cream. As for "less mess," you only need one bowl for the batter, and you'll build off of it depending on which part of the cupcake you're working on (vanilla or chocolate). So, for such a triple-threat of a treat, these cupcakes really aren't any harder (or messier) to make than your average cupcake.

The batter for these cupcakes is made from flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, butter, egg whites, vanilla extract, sour cream, and milk. You're also going to need cocoa powder to turn some of the batter chocolate, plus freeze-dried strawberries and confectioners' sugar for the frosting.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Line a cupcake pan with paper liners and set aside.

Make the cupcakes: In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until combined.

In a medium bowl whisk together the melted butter, egg whites, vanilla extract, sour cream, and whole milk until smooth.

Add the wet ingredients to the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.

Use a medium cookie scoop (about 1 ½ tablespoons) to distribute half the batter evenly into the cupcake liners.

Mix the cocoa powder into the remaining batter in the bowl.

Top the vanilla batter in the cupcake liners with the chocolate batter.

Bake cupcakes in the preheated oven for 20-22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Let cupcakes cool completely before frosting.

Make the frosting: Add the freeze-dried strawberries to the bowl of a food processor and pulse until they become mostly powder.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter until it is creamy.

Add the confectioners' sugar, strawberry powder, milk, vanilla extract, and salt to the bowl. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds and then high speed for 2 minutes until buttercream is fluffy.

Pipe or spread the strawberry buttercream onto the cooled cupcakes, add decorations as desired, and serve.

This recipe calls for using powdered, freeze-dried strawberries in the frosting since they add a concentrated dose of strawberry flavor and pretty pink coloring with no added moisture, and it really makes the whole process pretty easy. "Freeze dried strawberries make the frosting really easy because you just have to pulverize them and put it in the frosting," Morone explains, adding, "It's my new favorite hack for getting strawberry flavor into things because you aren't adding any extra moisture so you don't have to adjust anything else." That said, if you don't have any dried berries on hand but can't wait to start making these cupcakes, you can use either frozen or fresh berries, although you'll need to do a little tinkering with the recipe.

With either fresh or frozen berries, you'll first need to measure out 4 ounces, then cook them in a saucepan with a tablespoon of water over medium heat. Mash them as they cook, stirring until they turn into a thick compote and most of the moisture has evaporated. At this point, let the strawberries cool completely. Once they're cool, you can go ahead and substitute them for the dried berries in the frosting, but leave the milk out of the recipe since no extra moisture is required.

As we mentioned in the intro, even though Neapolitan is synonymous with chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry these days, that wasn't always the case. The original tricolor Italian ice cream may actually have been spumoni, since its green, pink, and white stripes (at the time) echoed the colors of the Italian flag. Modern-day spumoni has largely replaced that vanilla stripe with chocolate, though, making for an ice cream that closely resembles Neapolitan but tastes completely different. To turn these Neapolitan cupcakes into spumoni ones, you could add either pistachio pudding mix or a combination of green food coloring and pistachio or almond extract to the vanilla cake batter and make the frosting with cherries instead of strawberries.

Just about any other three flavors you like could also work here, such as chocolate and almond cupcakes with raspberry frosting, vanilla and coconut cake with pineapple frosting, vanilla and lemon cake with blueberry frosting, or spice and yellow cake with pumpkin frosting. You could also make a simpler two-flavor version of these cupcakes by combining either the chocolate or vanilla cake batter with the strawberry frosting.