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Close up shot of a chocolate cupcake.

Easy Chocolate Cupcake

This is the most amazing chocolate cupcake recipe. These chocolate cupcakes are moist, fluffy, full of rich chocolate flavor, and come together in one bowl. These chocolate cupcakes taste amazing with our chocolate cream cheese frosting and our chocolate buttercream frosting.
5 from 39 votes
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Servings 12 cupcakes
Calories 480 kcal

Ingredients
 
 

  • 2 Eggs
  • 1 cups Granulated sugar
  • 1 ½ cups Flour
  • 1 ½ teaspoon Baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon Baking soda
  • cups Cocoa powder
  • ½ teaspoon Kosher salt
  • cups Vegetable oil
  • 1 cups Hot coffee
  • 2 teaspoon Vanilla extract

Chocolate buttercream

  • 340 g Butter
  • 2 cups Powder sugar
  • ½ cup Cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
  • 1 Pinch of salt
  • 150 g Dark chocolate

Or Make Chocolate cream cheese frosting

  • 230 g Cream cheese softened
  • 115 g Butter softened
  • ½ teaspoon Kosher salt
  • 3 ½ cups Powder sugar
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract

Instructions
 

For the cupcakes:

  • Preheat an oven to 350f (180c) and prep a cupcake pan with liners.
  • In a big mixing bowl, add the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and mix with a whisk until well combined.
  • Add the hot coffee, oil, vanilla, and eggs. Mix well until combined and smooth.
  • Use an ice cream scoop to fill out the cupcake ⅔ full (do not overfill) and bake in a preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
  • Cool the cupcakes for 10 minutes and transfer them into a cooling rack to cool completely (don’t frost warm cupcake).

For the chocolate buttercream frosting:

  • Make the chocolate frosting: into a large bowl add room temperature butter and mix with a hand mixer or a stand mixer until the butter is light and fluffy.
  • Add half of the powder sugar and the cocoa powder and carefully mix until combined.
  • Add the other half of the powder sugar and mix until smooth.
  • Melt dark chocolate or semisweet chocolate and let it cool completely to room temperature.
  • Add the melted chocolate to the mixture and mix until well combined and smooth.

For the cream cheese chocolate frosting:

  • Make the chocolate frosting: into a large bowl add room temperature butter and mix with a hand mixer or a stand mixer until the butter is light and fluffy.
  • Add the cream cheese and mix until smooth.
  • Add the powder sugar, cocoa powder, pinch of salt, and vanilla extract and mix well until smooth.

Notes

Don’t skip the coffee in the chocolate cupcake, you can’t taste the coffee, it simply enhances the chocolate flavor.
Use room temperature ingredients. It is important that you use room-temperature ingredients like eggs and butter. This step ensures that your mixture mixes into a homogenous mixture and bakes perfectly. you don’t want to place cold batter into the oven.
Don’t overmix the batter, you don’t want to develop the gluten in the flour. This step ensures you have moist cupcakes and not dense and dry cupcakes.
Make sure that your butter is at room temperature. An hour or two before making these cupcakes, take the butter out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature. The butter should be soft to the touch. If your butter is too cold, it will be harder to mix and there will be lumps of butter in the dough.
Measure your flour correctly! When measuring your flour, avoid scooping it with a measuring cup. Instead, stir the flour with a spoon to create as many air pockets as possible, and spoon it into your measuring cup. Finally, level it with a back of a knife.

Nutrition

Calories: 480kcalCarbohydrates: 59gProtein: 5gFat: 36gSaturated Fat: 19gPolyunsaturated Fat: 5gMonounsaturated Fat: 9gTrans Fat: 1gCholesterol: 89mgSodium: 438mgPotassium: 216mgFiber: 4gSugar: 20gVitamin A: 753IUCalcium: 60mgIron: 3mg
Keyword chocolate cupcakes, Easy Chocolate Cupcake Recipe, moist chocolate cupcakes
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