First, the night before you make these, you're going to cut up about 16 medium strawberries (12 to 14 oz) and cover them in sugar (macerate them) 

The next day, when you're ready to make the cupcakes, pull the strawberries out of the fridge and use a potato masher or a food processor to just gently break them down a little bit more.  You still want some chunks of real strawberries -- NOT a puree.

Place the berries in a strainer over the bowl -- you won't need ALL the syrup for the cupcakes ;-)

Pre-heat oven to 350 and line the cupcake tin (6 large cupcakes or 36 mini cupcakes)

Sift cake flour several times into a medium bowl - from that sifted cake flour- measure out 2 3/4 C.  Place that into a small bowl with 1/4 tsp salt and 2 1/2 tsp baking powder.

In your mixer beat 2 sticks of room temperature butter and sugar together until they're a pretty and fluffy pale yellow.  Slowly add one egg at a time to the mixture beating for about one minute after each addition - don't forget to scrape the sides of the bowl!  You don't want to miss any of the buttery goodness!

Add 1 tsp pure vanilla extract and 1/4 tsp strawberry extract* and mix well.

Whisk your dry ingredients and then alternate adding your dry ingredients to the batter with 1/2 cup 2% milk.  Add the flour and milk in alternating batches mixing and scraping down the sides of the bowl well between each addition.

Add your berries and 1/4 C + 1 Tbsp strawberry juice to your batter

Mix well

Fill the cupcake tin about 3/4 full (I used an ice cream scoop)

Bake about 18 minutes until the top of the cupcake springs back or a strand of spaghetti comes out clean

Cool for 5 minutes and then remove from tin to continue cooling

Frost with favorite Buttercream frosting