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OMG you guys, I am so excited to share this recipe with you today! It’s no surprise that I am obsessed with chocolate. I’m the kind of person that can never (ever) have enough chocolate, the more the better. The recipe I’m sharing with you today are my favorite chocolate cupcakes in the entire world with the BEST chocolate buttercream frosting and I know you will adore them! They are super moist, almost fudgey, have a perfect light crumb and are incredibly chocolatey. Ever have a cupcake and it just tastes blah, almost like fake chocolate flavor? I know you know what I’m talking about. I can usually tell if a cupcake isn’t good if the brown color is very light. Now, that’s just my opinion, but I love when my cupcakes come out of the oven nice and dark and you can just tell by the smell and appearance that they’re going to be amazing. Maybe I just have a sick cupcake/chocolate obsession (#weirdo), but it’s true. The cupcakes are seriously perfect. And the frosting.. don’t even get me started. I made the cupcakes 4 days ago and have kept them in a cupcake container with a lid snapped on to ensure they stay fresh and they are STILL just as amazing as the first day I made them! The cupcakes even get a deeper chocolate flavor and the frosting stays smooth and luscious and doesn’t get a hard crusty coating on the outside at all, not even a little bit!
These have been my go-to chocolate cupcakes for some time now and I have made them up-teenth times so I can for sure tell you they are fool/fail-proof. You can’t mess these up. I love dessert recipes that don’t use melted chocolate because, well, I’m just too lazy to melt the chocolate so I really amped up the cooca powder in these to make them extra chocolatey for you guys.
I may or may not have had one of these babies for breakfast. But, I’ll never admit it.
The frosting is literally to die for. It’s SO simple too with easy ingredients you probably have on hand. To me, it’s not like traditional buttercream, it’s more chocolate-y and fudgy than that. You can just sit there and eat it by the spoonful, it just melts in your mouth. Super smooth and velvety. It pipes beautifully onto cupcakes and you can use it for frosting anything! I love frosting cakes and brownies with it too.
These truly are the ultimate chocolate cupcakes. You’ll never need another chocolate cupcake OR chocolate buttercream recipe again!
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The Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes
Ingredients
* Chocolate Cupcakes*
- 3/4 cup + 2 tbs all-purpose flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- pinch salt
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter melted
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup hot strong coffee (if using instant, use 2 tsp with 1/2 cup hot water)
*Chocolate Buttercream*
- 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 2 cups powdered sugar sifted
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder sifted
- 2-3 tbs heavy cream or milk for a less creamy frosting {use less}
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a cupcake tin with paper liners, set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted wight he paddle attachment, beat eggs, buttermilk, melted butter and vanilla together until thoroughly combined. Slowly pour in dry ingredients until smooth. Pour in hot coffee and mix until completely smooth. Batter will be very runny.
- Divided batter among prepared cupcake liners no more than 2/3 full (the batter will rise over and create a huge mess!). Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out moist with a few crumbs. Tops should slightly spring back when touched. Allow cupcakes to cool for about 10 minutes in hot pans so they have time to set up and be easier to handle before transferring to wire racks to finish cooling. While cupcakes are cooling, prepare frosting.
- For the frosting, beat butter for 3 minutes on medium speed until smooth and no lumps remain. Sift cocoa powder and powdered sugar together and add to butter until completely combined. Add vanilla and heavy cream and whip frosting until light and fluffy. Start with 1 tbs of heavy cream and work up from there if you want it to be thinner. Once cupcakes are completely cooled, frost them and serve.
- Frosted cupcakes will stay fresh for up to 3 days stored in an airtight container. Frosting stays exactly like the day it was made, no hard coating on the outside and the cupcakes stay very moist.
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Wow, these cupcakes look phenomenal. Practically licking my screen to get some of that butter cream!
Lol! Thank you Cindy!!
Best cupcakes I have ever made!! Will be a regular for me!
Those have my name all over them! I can never pass on a chocolate cupcake! YUM!
Then you would love them Serena! 🙂
Wow! These cupcakes definitely look like the best ones I’ve ever seen. They look so moist and airy just from the photos! Pinning for sure and can’t wait to try your recipe 🙂
Thanks so much Nicola, they are my favorite! Let me know how you like them if you try them out! 🙂
OMG, Made them yesterday! Congrats =)
So happy you liked them! 🙂
Hi jessica, I’ve featured these cupcakes on my blog, hoping that you don’t mind, but if you do, please contact me and I’ll remove it. All the best.
Thank you so much or sharing my cupcakes! Of course I don’t mind! 🙂
I do not have a paddle attachment, can I just use my handheld mixer with whisk attachment or do I use a whisker?
Either one will be just fine!
Yumm! Just pinned it!
Wow! This cupcake looks amazing! I can tell it’s moist and chocolaty, and the buttercream frosting looks so silky smooth. I’m going to pin this.
Yum!! But how in the world do you make that awesome looking frosting!!!
I made these today, with no modifications other than I used the whisk attachments on the mixer. I do a lot of baking so I have a lot of material for comparison. These are by far the BEST.CUPCAKES.EVER!!!
That’s awesome, thanks so much Trish!! So happy you loved them as much as I do! 🙂
Just stopping by from the Time to Sparkle Link Party. My husband and I are both chocoholics so we are definitely going to have to try this one!
Thanks so much for stopping by! You guys will love these! 😉
Wow! These cupcakes looks amazing!
Greetings Gosia
Can these be frozen after baking?
I have not tried freezing these cupcakes but I freeze cupcakes and muffins all the time so they should be perfectly fine. The method I use is once completely cool, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, then foil, then place in a zip lock bag. To defrost, let them sit out for a few hours or over night still in their wrapping at room temperature and you should be good to go! Hope this helps!
Awesome! I can’t wait to try these!
Is there a substitute for if I wanted to make them without coffee? My family won’t eat anything with coffee. I have tried before and they always taste it.
The coffee is used to intensify the chocolate flavor but you can absolutely substitute hot water with the same measurement!
How do these do as a round cake versus cupcakes? Does it need to be doubled if I’m going to make 2 round 8-9″ cakes?
Elizabeth, I’m not sure as I haven’t tried it myself. Sometimes cupcake recipes don’t work well for cakes. I recommend using this chocolate cake recipe – http://www.sprinklesomesugar.com/the-ultimate-chocolate-cake/ – it’s AMAZING! It’s the only chocolate cake recipe I use, you’ll love it!! I hope this helps! 🙂
Just wanted to know if there’s a prominent coffee flavor? Or is it just mostly chocolate?
Not at all! The coffee is only used to deepen the chocolate flavor. You would never know it was in there. If you are worried, feel free to just use hot water in place of the coffee. Hope this helps!
Awesome cupcakes and I loved the icing. Made for my son’s birthday and he loved them.
That’s awesome! So happy your son loved them! 🙂
I am super excited about trying this cupcakes the plan is tomorrow! Is there a way to make the icing not chocolate? It’s not because we don’t love it but I will be making for my daughters bday party and I need blue icing for the theme. Let me know what thoughts you have! Thanks!
Awesome, you’re going to love them! I have a really great recipe for vanilla frosting that you can use and color it blue 🙂 http://www.sprinklesomesugar.com/homemade-funfetti-cake-with-fluffy-vanilla-frosting/
Let me know how they come out!
Could you substitute milk for buttercream? How much of a difference would that make?
*buttermilk
Yes, you can definitely substitute buttermilk for the milk! I don’t think it would make much of a difference, maybe even more moist!
Oh, thank you, Amanda! You’re welcome. I’m glad you loved them! 🙂
Ohh man! I am in love with everything on your blog, and these chocolate cupcakes are my go to, for sure! I can practically taste them just thinking about them!
Oh, thank you, Kyia! That is so sweet of you. And yes, I agree, these chocolate cupcakes are definitely the best! They’re still my go-to also. 🙂
im so happy I found someone with my same love for chocolate! I just made these and even just making the batter, I could tell these were going to be delicious. Mine were done in about 15min. The first batch I set the timer for 20min and they came out Alittle overcooked. Overall this is definitely my new go-to chocolate cupcake. Simple. The only changes I made was I ate mine with peanut butter frosting haha thanks for sharing this recipe!
Thank you, Kerri!! I’m glad you loved the cupcakes. They’re my favorite! Peanut butter frosting sounds amazing on these! 🙂
Ultimate chocolate cupcakes? Um…DEFINITELY!!!!!!!
I just made these, and they are BY FAR the best chocolate cupcakes I’ve ever had. The cake is moist, tender, and rich. They’re amazing!
I filled and topped mine with marshmallow fluff then sprinkled on some graham cracker crumbs. Really, though, I’d eat the cupcake plain. They are THAT good.
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. Its the first I’ve made of yours, but you can bet I’ll be back for more!
Oh, this makes me so happy!! 🙂 Thanks so much, Carol! Your s’mores version sounds AMAZING!
These were delicious. I added a tsp of rasp ext along with the vanilla ext and some salt to the frosting. I got rave reviews at the party! Thank you so much for posting this!
Getting ready to make these! Will let you know how they come out! I can’t wait!!!
I’d love to hear how you liked them! Or you can tag me in social media with a picture! 🙂
These look amazing! Does the frosting recipe make enough to pipe all the cupcakes?
Thank you, Kim! Yes, it does.
Do they have to be refrigerated or will they be ok for a day at room temp?
They are perfectly fine at room temperature.
What would happen if I had not included the 1 egg?
I have not tested it that way but I can imagine that the cupcakes will have an odd texture and will not rise correctly.
I had been looking online for 3 days for a Mexican chocolate cupcake recipe. I had issues with each one for one reason or another and just looked for a good chocolate recipe I could modify (I had sure read enough recipes to know what to add!) I used yours as the base recipe and added 2tsp cinnamon and 1/8tsp cayenne to the dry ingredients. First I was terrified I’d messed up, it was so liquid. My 8 year old daughter was basically drinking it with a straw though. I poured it in the cups and baked as directed and DANG is that a great cupcake! Thank you so so so much!
These look DELICIOUS! I’d love to make them for a party. Could they be put in the freezer til I needed them? And should I frost them before or after freezing them? YUM! I can’t wait.