Today I’m sharing my favorite recipe for decadent classic chocolate cupcakes from scratch. Truly, this chocolate cupcake recipe is going to knock your socks off!
We’re talking ultra moist, fluffy, and perfectly chocolatey cupcakes! Mmmmm. Make these once, and your going to want to come back to this recipe again and again.
Don’t let the title of this post fool you, this amazing chocolate cupcake recipe can be used for chocolate cake layers too!
If you’ve explored our Recipes Section, you may be familiar with our favorite Classic Chocolate Cake recipe. This homemade chocolate cake has been one of our most popular cake recipes over the years, and is our go-to when we need a rich, delicious chocolate cake.
Today’s featured classic chocolate cupcake recipe is based on our popular chocolate cake recipe, but the mixing method is different.
Instead of using the reverse creaming method of mixing as we do when making layers of classic chocolate cake, we use the conventional method of mixing for our cupcakes. This small change makes for fluffier cupcakes!
Classic Chocolate Cupcakes from Scratch
Ingredients
- 1 cup (2 sticks) (226g) unsalted butter, softened
- 2 cups (400g) sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1/4 cup (54g) vegetable oil
- 2 3/4 cups (322g) all purpose flour
- 1 cup (82g) unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted (don't skip the sifting)
- 2 teaspoons (10g) baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon (2g) baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon (2g) salt
- 1 cup (220g) milk
- 1 teaspoon (4g) vanilla extract
- 1 cup (220g) hot coffee, it can be instant or brewed (coffee does need to be hot)
- cupcake liners
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. (If making a cake rather than cupcakes, grease and flour three 8 inch cake pans). In a separate bowl, add the flour, sifted cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Whisk to blend and set aside.
- In the bowl of your mixer, beat the softened butter on medium speed until light and creamy. Add the oil and vanilla. Gradually add the sugar and mix until light and fluffy, approximately 4 to 5 minutes. Add the eggs 1 at a time, mixing after each egg just until the yellow disappears. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.
- Mixing on medium speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk to the sugar mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. (3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 additions of milk)
- Add the cup of hot coffee at this time. The batter will be very thin. Don't worry this is how it should be.
- Pour into 3 prepared 8 inch pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes. Check for doneness at 30 min. by putting a toothpick in the center of the cake. If it comes out clean or with only a few drums attached, it is done.
- Makes 9 cups of batter
- FOR CUPCAKES: Bake at 350 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes. The recipe will make 2 dozen plus cupcakes
The chocolate cupcakes above were frosted with our Classic Vanilla Buttercream recipe. Our Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream would work well too!
We used a good old 2D (large star) piping tip to create a rose swirl. (To make a rose swirl, simply start in the center of the cupcake, holding the bag vertically, and spiral out.)
**If you are looking for a great Doctored Cake Mix recipe for Chocolate Cupcakes, we love this one!: Chocolate Cake (Doctored Cake Mix) Recipe
Other popular fillings and frostings for chocolate cupcakes are: Peanut Butter Buttercream, Classic Chocolate Buttercream, Coconut Filling, and Mint Chocolate Chip Buttercream Frosting!
Thanks for stopping by, and enjoy the cupcakes! Wish I had some right now! ;0) xo
Hi Audrey, Yes, you can substitute all purpose flour with cake flour. For each cup of all purpose flour in the recipe, use 1 cup cake flour plus 2 Tablespoons cake flour. This recipe has 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour so you will use 2 3/4 cup cake flour plus 5 Tablespoons and 1 1/2 teaspoons additional cake flour.
Hi! I tried this recipe for the first time last night, I’d been wanting to try it for a while but just got to it last night. I got exactly 9 cups of batter which I separated in 3-8″ pans and the cake baked beautifully. They rose wonderfully and seemed very light however as I took them out and let them cool, they started to loose height. They were about 1.75″ high and I ended up with about 1.25″ total height on my completely cooled cakes. Do you know why this might have happened? What could I change to make sure this doesn’t happen again?
Great, thank you Melissa for your response.
Audrey
My batch came out with 30 cupcakes. Just wondering if anyone else had this happen. Cupcakes are good but recipe said 24 cupcakes.
What tip did you use for the chocolate cupcakes please?
Greatly appreciated
Charmaine
I want to make these with the beautiful pink flower looking frosting. What is the recipe for that and what piping tip did you use?
Hello we used our Classic Vanilla Buttercream & a 2D tip, but a 1M tip would give a very similar result (as would our Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream Recipe)
To Shannon C from December 2017 post. I just made this recipe today and I got 35!!! Great cupcakes!
Hello there,
Ive read the recepie..you have mentioned that the oven needs to be pre heated to 350 degrees, however the OTG (called as oven toaster n grill) the temprerature which shows only till 250
So hiw wud i go abt baking the cupcake in this situation. Any help is appreciated.
Thank You.
Regards,
Pallavi
Hi Pallavi, I think that your oven is temperature is in celsius and my temperature is measured in fahrenheit. So you would set your oven to 177. Here is a link to a chart you will find helpful,
link to goodcooking.com
This recipe make a lot of batter for cupcakes so if you need to hold extra batter until the oven if free, keep it refrigerated. This is not ideal but it should work for you. Hope all goes well.
Thank you so much for your help. Will surely try to bake the cupcake now. Also, thank you for the conversion chart it is so useful.
Have a gr8 day.
Regards
Hi. What would the baking time be if I were to make mini cupcakes? And would I need to adjust the temperature?
Thanks,
Dimple
Hi Dimple, I keep the temperature the same for mini cupcakes, 350 degrees and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Once the cupcakes are out of the oven, remove from the pan an place on a cooling rack.
Awesome! Thank you so much!
Hi, what color did you use to make that georgeous pink frosting?
Hi Audrey, We used AmeriColor Deep Pink, just a small amount added with a toothpick to the buttercream
Hi. Are you using a standard size cup cake liner?
Thanks
Dawn
Hi Dawn, Yes, we used standard size cupcake liners
Just made these and they are a hit! Texture is more like airy castella cake than traditional American dense cupcakes. I totally forgot to add the cocoa powder until after adding in the coffee, but luckily the results still came out good. I had 38 standard cupcakes, I could make it to 40 even but I ran out of silicone cupcakes molds.
Do let them air completely before cover it, I packed them up after 3 hours of cooling time, and still find the top sticky/damp next day. Dusted some confectioner sugar to cover up as my guest doesn’t like frosting on cupcakes.
Hi Marisa, Thanks for using the recipe, and I’m glad the cupcakes were a hit!! Great tip about the confectioners sugar. Thanks for posting!
Hello there,
Can Inuse this recepie using one 12” pan?
Thank you in advance.
Hi Nora, You could bake in one 12″ pan. Bake at 350 degrees and begin checking for doneness at 40 minutes. It would be a good idea to use Wilton Baking Strips and a couple of rose nails in the center to help with even baking. This recipe makes 9 cups of batter so you will have enough with 1 recipe. Below are links to 2 baking charts giving batter amounts that you will find helpful.
link to fromkarenskitchen.com
link to wilton.com