Hey, true chocolate fans. These winter chocolate cupcakes are incredibly moist, tender and packed with chocolate flavour. They are topped with a silky, not-too-sweet, vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream and garnished with sprinkles and cute snowflakes. This recipe is a keeper.
This is a cupcake recipe that you want to keep and take as a base for all of your cupcakes. Wink.
The recipe couldn’t be easier. Using only simple ingredients, you can create your new favourite cupcakes. Besides that, you’ll need two bowls, a whisk, a muffin pan and cupcake liners. One bowl of dry ingredients and one bowl of wet ingredients. Mix them together and you are done. Simple, right? The cupcake batter won’t be very thick and that’s the reason why these cupcakes turn out bouncy and spongey. Yey.
More, these cupcakes are super moist and packed with chocolate flavour and chocolate chips. Yummy. In order to get the best results, use oil and buttermilk. After all, they are responsible for the super moist texture and incredible flavour.
Also, for an extra chocolate surprise, I added some chocolate chips to each cupcake. Lovely. Besides the flavour, they add some crunch, too. The batter will be thin, but it can still hold the chocolate chips in place.
A great tip, that will make your cupcakes perfect, is to fill the cupcake liners only halfway full. Trust me, you don’t want to fill them too full and end with a crisp mushroom top. We are not making muffins. And, at the same time, you prevent them from sinking in the middle. Therefore, halfway full!
More, since this is quite a lot of cupcakes and I only have one 8-cup muffin pan, I baked them in three batches. Because the cupcake batter consists of baking powder, you’ll have to make a new batter each time you are baking a new batch. Why? If you let any batter with baking powder or baking soda sit for too long outside the oven, the chemical reaction won’t work as it should and you’ll be left with a batter or dough that has no leavening. In other words, you’ll end with a flat cake or cupcake.
If you make them ahead (I would recommend up to 2 days), simply wrap them into transparent foil and store them in an airtight food box. Keep them at room temperature. On the other hand, for later use, they can be frozen up to a couple of months.
Swiss meringue buttercream
Furthermore, to make these chocolate cupcakes complete, frost them with some lovely buttercream. This time I decided on a Swiss meringue buttercream, instead of French buttercream. This buttercream comes together easily with only heated sugar and egg whites, flavouring and butter. The result is a creamy, fluffy, light and silky buttercream. It is sweet but not too sweet.
Also, because of its white colour as a base, is perfect for colouring up. What do you think of my version? I used sky blue and royal blue to achieve this gorgeous blue colour that reminds me of winter or the movie “Frozen”. By the way, I also made these on request for a birthday party, themed Elsa from Frozen. Wink.
There is a common “problem” that occurs and scares a lot of hobby bakers when whipping Swiss meringue buttercream. After you start adding butter, the buttercream starts to look curdled or soupy. No worries here. It’s entirely normal. Keep whipping and eventually, it will come together. Wink.
Sugar sprinkles
To really pimp up your cupcakes, use fun and beautiful garnish, such as sprinkles and other sugar ornaments. I used a plunger cutter to make those small cute snowflakes. I suggest making those a day ahead because either fondant or sugar paste needs to dry.
The white snowflakes fit the winter topic beautifully. Also, they pair great with silver, white and blue sprinkles. For instance, sugar perls, dragees, confetti and jimmies sprinkles make any cupcake special. Wink.
Ingredients for 24-26 winter chocolate cupcakes:
- 190 g flour
- 85 g cocoa powder
- 1 tsp of baking powder
- 1 tsp of baking soda
- 2 pinches of salt
- 4 eggs (room temperature)
- 200 g sugar
- 200 g brown sugar
- 160 g coconut oil (melted)
- 1 tsp vanilla paste (extract)
- 240 ml buttermilk
- chocolate chips or drops
Ingredients for vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream:
- 300 g sugar
- 5 egg whites
- 400 g butter (room temperature, diced)
- gel food colouring (blue royal and sky blue)
- white fondant/sugar paste snowflakes (garnish; optional)
- sugar sprinkles (garnish)
To begin, line the muffin pan with cupcake paper liners. If you have more muffin pans, line all of them and preheat the oven to 178°C.
Then, in a larger bowl add flour, baking powder and baking soda, cocoa powder and salt. Whisk to combine and set aside.
In the second, medium bowl, add the eggs, both sugars, coconut oil and vanilla paste. Whisk well to combine. At this point, pour the wet ingredients and the buttermilk into the larger bowl with flour and stir shortly, until combined. Try not to overmix.
Next, using a spoon, fill the cupcake liners halfway up and add about 5 chocolate chips to each of them. Put them in the oven and bake for 18-20 minutes.
Once the cupcakes are baked, take them out of the oven and leave them in the pan for a couple of minutes. Then, remove them from the pan and place them onto a wire rack and allow them to chill off completely.
Meanwhile, prepare the vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream. In a heatproof bowl add egg whites and sugar. Whisk to combine. Then, place the bowl over a water bath and warm the mixture, with constant whisking, until it reaches 65° C and you feel no grains of sugar in it.
Remove the bowl from the heat and let it cool off for a couple of minutes. Afterwards, whip the mixture until it reaches room temperature and stiff and shiny peaks. At this point, start adding the room-temperature butter dice, a couple at a time. Make sure the butter incorporates well, before adding the next dice.
Add the vanilla and continue to whip until fluffy and shiny. Using the tip of a knife, add the colouring gel and whip to colour up evenly. Transfer the buttercream to a piping bag with a larger star tip.
Finally, pipe the vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream onto each cupcake, garnish them with sprinkles and top with a couple of snowflakes. Serve these winter chocolate cupcakes at a party, birthday or just like that.
Enjoy.
