I don't do many scratch cakes.  I made this strawberry cake (Edna's recipe on youtube).  Taste is fine (tasted one of the cupcakes).  The tops of the cupcakes are sticky and look bubbly.  The full size cake the edges look bubbly It didn't rise much and looks strange.

Help would be appreciated. 

Steps in a nutshell.  Cream butter & sugar add yolks and vanilla.  Alternate dry and buttermilk.  Fold in strawberry puree.  Whip egg whites and fold in.

Thanks.

Judi

AHow did you make the strawberry puree?

Per the instructions I thawed the berries and then used them with very little of the juice (mainly what came up when I spooned it in and then since I couldn't find my hand blender put it in the blender.

I'm not an expert on using real fruit puree, but what you're looking at is too much moisture in the mix - back when I was experimenting I worried about dry cupcakes, so I'd add a teeny bit of water and it made that sticky/bobbly top just like yours. In the larger cake it looks like the strawberry part just sunk, which means the mixture was too heavy/dense to do much rising. If you cut into it, is the strawberry flavour stronger at the bottom? All I can suggest is you look up how to make a thicker puree with even less liquid, and hopefully some wise ladies here will add to this.   

A strawberry reduction might work better, less moisture-stronger flavour.

Is it humid where you are?

In saying that, sticky tops aren't all bad, it means the cupcakes moist and icing will essentially cover it anyway.

The sides of the cake are really dense. the middle is a bit better.

While I'm sure there's an awesome strawberry cake recipe out there, it's not something I offer.  Since all my cakes have fillings, I offer strawberry buttercream/puree as a filling.  To me it tastes so much fresher not having been baked.  You can pair it with any white, yellow, lemon, chocolate, sponge, pound cake--my fave is pink champagne cake with strawberry filling.

Freeze dried strawberries will add the flavor without adding moisture.  the cake texture is light and it bakes up beautifully.  PM me if you would like the recipe.  (I have not used it for cupcakes, but have used it many times for all shapes and sizes of cake).  

AI have used Yortma's recipe and it's wonderful. I have used it sucessfully for both cake and cupcakes.

Wow, thanks Krypto! Glad it worked for you.