Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting
These easy chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting are made with Dutch-processed cocoa powder for an intense chocolate flavor and frosted with a simple vanilla buttercream frosting that’s good enough to eat from the bowl.
Servings: 12 cupcakes
Equipment
Ingredients
Chocolate Cake
- 1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour 170 g
- ½ cup cocoa powder half natural/half Dutch-processed, 54 g
- 1 cup granulated sugar 180 g
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup buttermilk 231 g, room temperature
- ¼ cup vegetable oil 50 g
- 1 large egg room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Vanilla Frosting
- 12 oz unsalted butter 3 sticks, 340 g, room temperature
- 1 ½ cup powdered sugar 150 g, sifted
- 6 tablespoon heavy whipping cream
- 1 ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract substitute seeds from ½ a vanilla bean or vanilla bean paste
- A big pinch of salt
Instructions
- Make the cake batter: Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners and set aside.
- In a small mixing bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder and baking soda. Stir in the salt and mix with a whisk to distribute evenly. Set aside.
- Add buttermilk, vegetable oil, egg, and vanilla extract to a medium bowl. Beat together with a whisk until smooth. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredient mixture and fold until just combined.
- Use a large ice cream scoop to divide batter into the previously prepared muffin pan. One flat scoop of batter for each cupcake cavity, or about ¼ cup of batter each.
- Bake in the middle oven rack for 17-18 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool to the touch, remove cupcakes from the pan and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.
- Make the vanilla frosting: Add butter, cream, vanilla bean paste and salt to the stand mixer bowl. Sift in powdered sugar.
- Stir to incorporate all of the ingredients, then increase the mixer speed gradually to high and beat until the frosting is white and fluffy, about 5 -15 minutes.
Notes
- Vegetable oil, canola oil or olive oil will work in this recipe.
- If you don’t have buttermilk, use regular milk, sour cream, yogurt or make homemade buttermilk by mixing regular milk with lemon juice or sour cream/yogurt.
- If you’re using just one type of cocoa powder, I recommend Dutch-processed for the darker color and more intense flavor.
- Use a large cookie scoop, equivalent to ¼ cup, to evenly divide the cupcake batter.
- If you want specks of vanilla bean in the frosting, use seeds of ½ a vanilla bean or 1 ½ teaspoon of vanilla bean paste.
Nutrition
Serving: 109g | Calories: 403kcal
