These chocolate cupcakes are easy to make and taste delicious. They get their extra chocolate-y flavour from both cocoa powder and grated milk chocolate. Perfect topped with smooth chocolate buttercream.
As promised, here’s the recipe for my yummy chocolate cupcakes, all ready for the creation of my build-your-own cupcakes index which I’ve been busy working on and will be sharing with you soon. The idea is to have all of my cupcakes and buttercream recipes in one place so you can mix and match (with maybe a hidden centre in the middle too 🙂 ). The index is also going to have a round up of all of my fancier cupcake creations, such as raspberry trifle, white russian or millionaires’ shortbread as well.
These chocolate cupcakes are based on the same recipe as my chocolate birthday cake, which gets its extra chocolate-iness from using a combination of both cocoa powder and grated chocolate. I’ve used milk chocolate in the recipe (as I prefer it slightly sweeter) but I’ve been assured by readers that have tried the recipe that it works just as well with dark chocolate too.
These cupcakes are topped with my chocolate buttercream. For a change I used dark chocolate (OK, I went to the cupboard and discovered someone had eaten all my milk chocolate – I’m blaming Jon!). The dark chocolate worked really well, I’d definitely recommend it if you prefer a slightly richer flavour.
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Easy Chocolate Cupcakes
INGREDIENTS
- 150 g self-raising flour
- 30 g cocoa powder
- 175 g caster sugar
- 175 g soft margarine - or softened butter
- 3 large eggs
- ⅛ tsp vanilla extract
- 75 g milk chocolate - choose something from the baking aisle in the supermarket as it will cope well with the heat in the oven without going grainy
- ½ tbsp milk
Extras
- 12 cupcake cases
INSTRUCTIONS
- Pre-heat your oven to 160ºC/140ºC fan.
- Put your cupcake cases into a muffin tin.
- Grate the milk chocolate (75g).
- Put all of the ingredients into a large bowl (150g self-raising flour, 30g cocoa powder, 175g caster sugar, 3 large eggs, 175g soft margarine, ⅛ tsp vanilla extract, ½ tbsp milk and the grated chocolate) mix on a low speed until fully combined.
- Divide the mixture evenly between the 12 cupcake cases (I use a cupcake scoop to help split it evenly).
- Put the tin into the oven and cook the cupcakes for 20-25 minutes. After 20 minutes put a skewer in the middle and check if it comes out clean. If it does they're done, if not pop them back in for a couple more minutes and check again.
- Once cooked, remove the cupcakes from the oven and leave them to cool in the tins for a few minutes.
- Remove the cupcakes from their tin and pop them onto a wire rack to cool completely.
NOTES
NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
Any nutritional information provided is the estimated nutritional information per serving. Please refer to my guide to Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen nutritional information if you would like to learn more about how this is calculated.
Free From/Suitable For…
- Suitable for Vegetarians
- Nut-Free
- Soy-Free
The ingredients for this recipe are easily available free from all these allergens. However, please ensure you double-check allergen information for all ingredients.
I’m sharing this recipe with the following challenges… Love Cake with JibberJabberUK, We Should Cocoa with Tin & Thyme and Treat Petite with The Baking Explorer and CakeyBoi.
Leena says
Please can you advise if this recipe would need to be doubled if making a cake instead in a 7inch tin
Charlotte Oates says
The amount of mixture in the recipe is the correct amount for using in 2 7″ sandwich tins.
Sam says
I love these cupcakes, they’re so ‘chocolatey’. Easy recipe and great outcome. I always use your recipes for birthday cakes but have only just tried the cupcake recipe for the first time.
Katie says
Love the taste of this recipe, but my cupcakes are really greasy at the bottom? Any ideas how I can solve this please x
Charlotte Oates says
If your cupcakes are greasy the most likely reason is that the butter/margarine wasn’t quite mixed in enough. If there are any small lumps left in the mixture, then these melt in the oven and leave you with greasy bottoms.
Another thing to try (if you don’t think it’s that) is to add a little rice into the bottom of your muffin tin before adding the cupcake cases. This rice will absorb any moisture/oil at the bottom of the cupcakes while they bake.
Ruby says
Hi this recipe looks so good and so easy, i can’t wait to try it. Can you tell me what type/brand of chocolate you use for this recipe and your chocolate buttercream recipe as i feel like that has a really big impact on taste. Thanks!
Charlotte Oates says
I usually use Dr Oetker or Green and Blacks from the baking aisle.
Aldi is also very good (although I can’t remember the name of it).
Charlotte says
I love this recipe. So easy to follow and vest tasting cupcakea yet and i have tried a few. Only thing i changed was i used dark chocolate which i melted before i added to the mix.
Zainab says
This looks great. I’m going to be baking stuff for Halloween and will be using your recipes. I don’t have any cocoa powder can I s still make this recipe?
Charlotte Oates says
You can, although it won’t be as chocolatey and it will be flecked with chocolate rather than a dark chocolatey colour. If you do decide to give it a try replace the weight of the cocoa powder with additional flour.
Elise says
Amazing everyone loved them as usual favourite recipe and super easy to follow for my kids thank you!
Zahraa says
Hi Charlotte,
I absolutely love your recipes! I just had a quick question in regards to your chocolate cupcakes and chocolate orange flavoured cupcakes.
Everytime I make them they fall apart from the cupcake cases, is there anything you’d suggest to help prevent this?
This is the method I follow when I bake them;
After I take the cupcakes out of the oven, I leave them in the tray so they can adjust to the temperature change.
After this I place them onto a wire rack to cool down further.
Charlotte Oates says
What cases do you use? I have this problem with some brands but never with Tesco or Dr Oetker muffin cases.
At the moment the humidity in the air is making this more common.
Anthony says
I used to have this problem before, but what i do now is leave them to cool in the tin for 2 minutes, then take them out and put them straight on to the cooling rack. I heard somewhere that if you leave them to completely cool in the tin, they sweat and that’s what makes the cases come away from the Cupcakes. I have never had a problem since.
Suzanne says
Another cupcake recipe that I love – they were so easy to make and turned out better than any chocolate cupcakes I have ever made. Have even increased the amount of chocolate on occasions to make the taste a bit stronger but definitely delicious!
Jules says
Can you use any chocolate for the buttercream ie some white and some milk or would milk work the best trying out for a friends son who is chocolate obsessed si was going to do a mixture
Charlotte Oates says
You can use either dark or milk for the chocolate buttercream. If you’d like to use white, then you can use my white chocolate buttercream recipe.
Sian says
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. I have made several attempts in making chocolate cupcakes but they’ve always been small in side and very dry. I decided to look at alternatives and came across this one. I was a bit apprehensive about using milk chocolate instead of dark as I’ve heard that milk chocolate ruins the quality of the cake. However, the cupcakes came out perfectly and were absolutely delicious. So moist and were a huge hit during my son’s birthday. By far the best recipe for chocolate cupcakes.
Rebecca Davies says
Made these cupcakes for my parents 40th wedding anniversary. I used plain chocolate instead of milk chocolate and topped with the buttercream suggested. The cakes were gorgeous and received lots of compliments. Will definitely make them again.
Zara says
Are u able to make this recipe without the grated milk chocolate?
Charlotte Oates says
You need to add the chocolate in some form other wise it won’t have enough flavour (it will work as a cake, but it isn’t nearly chocolatey enough in my opinion).
If you have the chocolate but don’t want to grate it then you can melt it instead. Melt it and leave it to cool to room temperature. Mix together all of the other ingredients and then mix in the melted chocolate.
Jessica says
I made these without the grated chocolate and enjoyed them. They were light in flavour and just right. If you want more richness then I would add the chocolate or even chocolate chips.
GLM says
140 is not hot enough so even after 25 minutes they were still not cooked
Charlotte Oates says
It sounds as though your oven could run a little colder than others (sadly they can all be a bit inconsistent). I’d suggest bumping the heat up a little or leaving them in for a little bit longer and you should find they’re perfectly baked.
Danielle says
Cakes turned out light and moist. My 10year old found them easy to make and is looking forward to using the birthday chocolate recipe to make her dads birthday cake. That nice had to have 2!!
oshee says
superb
Stephen says
Tried this and turned out really good, but have made them twice after and even after 22 minutes in the oven I put the cocktail stick and it’s got stuff on it so put them in again for another 3 mins and when they came out they had sunk and are more brownie texture and gooey. Don’t know what is going wrong any advice ?
Charlotte Oates says
Hmmm, it’s a bit of a mystery why the worked first time and not after that.
The reason the collapsed and went fudgey was most likely because you checked them before they were cooked in the middle. But why weren’t they cooked?
It could be…
1) You used larger cupcake cases so there was more mixture in each one – this will mean they take longer to cook.
2) You baked more at once so your oven was fuller – there is less space for the heat to circulate around the cakes so they take longer to cook, meaning they’re underdone at the normal time.
3) Your oven temperature has gone out of alignment – if it’s a little too cool then they won’t be baked through. I’d recommend getting an oven thermometer to check the temperature of your oven.
Sheron says
Turned out great. 20 mins was too long though, so I did 15 and left them in for 5 mins with oven off. Kids enjoyed them.
Shame I can’t post a picture.
Michelle Stubbs says
Loved these cupcakes, recipe is really easy to follow as an amateur baker. Cakes were delicious and everyone enjoyed them. Thank you! 🙂
Lydia says
I’m new to baking and this recipe is really easy to follow and the cupcakes were amazing. I substituted grated chocolate for chocolate chips as a time saver so was worried they might not turn out great, but they were amazing, Thank you so much, can’t wait to try the vanilla cupcakes next.
Charlotte Oates says
I’m so glad you enjoyed them 🙂
I hope you enjoy the vanilla ones too. Let me know if there’s any other flavours you’d like to see on here.