If you love a rich and decadent chocolate cake then you’re going to love this best Chocolate Cupcake Recipe with whipped chocolate buttercream frosting! Make a batch or two ahead of time and freeze for added convenience, ready to be piped with decadent chocolate frosting and served to your liking!
Just like the classic chocolate cake recipe inspired by Hershey’s Chocolate Cake, these moist chocolate cupcakes are also light and fluffy with richer, creamier dark cocoa frosting. My favorite part thing about this recipe is that the cupcake batter mixes up all together in one bowl – you basically just toss everything together, mix it up, and you’re ready to bake!
These basic Chocolate Cupcakes are easy enough to whip up for whenever you feel like treating yourself and the family yet they can also be modified with minimal extra effort to make gourmet chocolate cupcakes with a flavored filling or decorated for a specific party theme or holiday celebration. Some of our other favorite Chocolate desserts are Chocolate Meringue Pie, No Bake Chocolate Cheesecake or my husbands favorite The Best Chocolate Cream Pie.
Decorate your cupcakes with your choice of sprinkles while the frosting is still setting. You could even decorate these chocolate cupcakes with a particular holiday in mind. This chocolate cupcake base is great to use for making these Easy Bunny Cupcakes, Toadstool Cupcakes, Wicked Witch Cupcakes, or Olaf Cupcakes. Honestly, though, the options are endless!
Jump to:
🧁 Ingredients:
- Flour – all-purpose flour or cake flour
- Cocoa powder – unsweetened cocoa powder for the deep chocolate base
- White Sugar – granulated
- Baking soda and baking powder – helps rise the cake and make it fluffy
- Sea salt – helps enhance the flavors
- Milk – we use whole milk to make this richer
- Eggs – bring to room temperature
- Boiling water or hot coffee – using coffee helps enhance the chocolate flavors and provides a richness
- Vanilla extract – enhances the flavors
- Vegetable oil or canola oil – adds moistness
- Butter – salted
- Powdered sugar – for the sweetness in the frosting
- Heavy cream – makes the frosting fluffy!
For a full list of ingredients and their measurements, 📋 please view my printable recipe card at the bottom of the post.
Substitutions and Variations
- Add brewed coffee to the cupcake batter and make the buttercream frosting vanilla instead of chocolate for a Black Magic Cake version of cupcakes!
- These cupcakes are made with milk instead of buttermilk which gives them a light and fluffy texture. You could use buttermilk instead should you want a more dense cupcake.
- If you wanted a lighter option, you can frost these with a nice homemade vanilla frosting too.
- Transform the look of your chocolate cupcakes with decorative cupcake toppers that you can easily source from local baking supply stores or online depending on your theme and the occasion.
- Make mini chocolate cupcakes by using mini cupcake liners and reduce the baking time to 10-12 minutes at 350℉. Again, make sure to only fill the mini cupcake liners hallway.
- A small amount of salt added to your cupcake batter enhances the chocolate flavor while balancing out the sweetness so don’t overlook this ingredient, as insignificant as it may seem!
🔪 Instructions:
Step 1: Whisk together the dry ingredients.
Step 2: Into the same bowl, add in the wet ingredients to the flour mixture.
Step 3: Pour the boiling water or coffee into the bowl while stirring on low speed to combine all of the ingredients together.
Step 4: Line the muffin tins with cupcake liners and fill each one halfway full with batter. Bake the cupcakes!
Pro Tip: I spray the cupcake liners with cooking spray to avoid the cupcake sticking to the liner.
Step 5: Beat together the frosting ingredients on medium speed and then once incorporated, turn to high speed.
Step 6: Frosting should look smooth and fluffy.
Step 7: Load the frosting into a big piping bag fitted with your piping tip. (My FAVORITE piping tip for frosting cupcakes is #1M.) Pipe the frosting onto the tops of the cooled delicious chocolate cupcakes.
Step 8: Refrigerate or serve immediately.
GARNISH/SLICE/SERVE: Serve by itself or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or fresh fruit.
Recipe Tips for One bowl Chocolate Cupcakes:
- Make your chocolate cupcakes gourmet by adding in a decadent chocolate frosting filling to the center of the cupcake, or a caramel buttercream filling like these Filled German Chocolate Cupcakes With Caramel Buttercream.
- Use different options for frostings such as Strawberry Marshmallow Buttercream, Peppermint Marshmallow Frosting, Cherry Buttercream Frosting, Glossy White Mountain Frosting, Peanut Butter Buttercream, or Classic Cream Cheese Frosting.
- Always use a shiny cupcake/muffin pan instead of a dark one as dark pans will absorb more heat from the oven and you run the risk of having your cupcakes browning on the edges and top while still being undercooked on the inside. This will also result in dryer cupcakes. For this reason, I recommend that you line your pan with paper cupcake liners to solve this problem entirely. In fact, cupcake liners are also good for keeping cupcakes moist for longer which is particularly useful in case you need to store your cupcakes for any length of time.
- Make sure that all the refrigerated ingredients used for making the cupcake batter are at room temperature before mixing all the ingredients together. This helps the batter to mix evenly and smoothly.
Recipe FAQs
These chocolate cupcakes can be stored for up to 3-4 days at room temperature or in the refrigerator when kept in an airtight container.
You can also freeze these cupcakes for up to 3 months with these two methods:
1. Freeze the unfrosted cupcakes and wrap each cupcake with plastic wrap to be stored in an airtight container in the freezer, leaving the frosting just prior to serving.
2. Flash freeze frosted chocolate cupcakes on a baking sheet and then transfer them to an airtight container to be stored in the freezer. The flash freezing will help to prevent the frosting from getting messed up during storage.
Whether you’ve opted to use cupcake liners or simply pour your cupcake batter straight into the cupcake/muffin tin, it’s really important that you fill them correctly.
If you overfill, you will end up with mushroom tops and you risk the center of your cupcakes sinking and not cooking through.
For best results to prevent this, make sure to only fill your cupcake tin or liners halfway full…not more, not less!
More Cupcake Recipes For the Cupcake Lovers!!
If you tried this easy Chocolate Cupcake Recipe or any other recipe on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how you liked it in the 📝 comments below.
Chocolate Cupcakes
Ingredients
Cupcake Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup milk
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1 cup boiling water or hot coffee
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup canola oil
Cupcake Frosting Ingredients
- ¾ cup salted butter softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅔ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- ¾ cup heavy cream
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a 9×13 baking pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
- Whisk together all of the dry ingredients in the bowl of a standing mixer: flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
- Add the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients: milk, eggs, vanilla, and oil.
- Beat together with a hand mixer or whisk. Gradually add in the boiling water while mixing to help break apart the batter.
- Pour the batter into the prepared muffin pan.
- Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cakes comes out with just a few crumbs.
- Cool cupcakes completely.
- Meanwhile, prepare the frosting.
- In the bowl of a standing mixer or with a hand mixer, slowly begin to beat together softened butter, vanilla, and cocoa powder.
- Rotate between adding the powdered sugar and heavy cream until both are fully incorporated and the frosting is fluffy and smooth.
- Pipe the frosting over the cooled cupcakes.
- Serve.
Notes
- Make sure that all the refrigerated ingredients used for making the cupcake batter are at room temperature before mixing all the ingredients together. This helps the batter to mix evenly and smoothly.
- These cupcakes are made with milk instead of buttermilk which gives them a light and fluffy texture. You could use buttermilk instead should you want a more dense cupcake.
- Always use a shiny cupcake/muffin pan instead of a dark one as dark pans will absorb more heat from the oven and you run the risk of having your cupcakes browning on the edges and top while still being undercooked on the inside.
Nutrition
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