These super moist chocolate cupcakes pack TONS of chocolate flavor in each cupcake wrapper! Made from simple everyday ingredients, this easy cupcake recipe will be your new favorite. For best results, use natural cocoa powder and buttermilk. These chocolate cupcakes taste completely over-the-top with chocolate buttercream!
Today we’re diving deep into what I like to call a “foundation recipe.” Basic chocolate cupcakes which are, indefinitely, anything but basic.
This is a solid base recipe that serves as a jumping off point for many others. Like my basic vanilla cupcakes recipe, these chocolate cupcakes hold a sacred spot in my desserts repertoire. There will never be a reason to find a better version—this is THE chocolate cupcake recipe I use time and time again.
I shared this recipe 3 years ago as chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting, but I want to walk you through the process (1) with step-by-step pictures, (2) with careful explanations, (3) and I want to emphasize one VERY crucial instruction. If you skip this instruction, your entire batch will be ruined. Trust me, the evidence has landed in my trashcan time and time again. It’s not pretty.
Curious about other foundation recipes?
- Vanilla cupcakes and vanilla cake
- Sugar cookies and chocolate sugar cookies
- Chocolate cake (try this!!)
- Chewy fudgy frosted brownies
- Peanut butter cookies (foundation for 6+ other cookies on my site!)
Today’s chocolate cupcakes are for true chocolate fans. I’m talking about those of you who don’t qualify an item as dessert unless there’s chocolate involved. Strawberry shortcake is a dessert impostor and forget about apple pie. That’s some sort of health food, right?
You need 2 bowls, 1 whisk, and 1 spatula. The base of these chocolate cupcakes, and what is responsible for the texture, is oil—the same powerhouse ingredient we use for a super moist chocolate cake roll. Like double chocolate muffins, we’re not creaming butter here, so there is no need to break out the mixer. Though you can absolutely use a hand or stand mixer if it’s easier for you.
We’re also achieving an incredibly moist texture with buttermilk. Just like in these cream-filled chocolate cupcakes, buttermilk also gives us the best flavor. I don’t typically have buttermilk in the fridge, so I sour whole milk instead. Check out my recipe notes for how to make a buttermilk substitute.
Another tip? Make sure you’re using natural unsweetened cocoa powder, not dutched cocoa, just like when making chocolate frosted cookies. Why? Here’s the difference between dutch-process vs. natural cocoa powder. And if you really want to learn today, here is the difference between baking soda vs. baking powder and why I use both in these chocolate cupcakes.
So there’s 1 bowl for dry ingredients and 1 bowl for wet ingredients. Gently mix the two together. The batter isn’t as thick as you would think. We don’t really want a super thick chocolate batter because that would yield a cupcake similar to brownies. Dense. We don’t want dense! We want spongey, cakey, and rich.
This Will Make or Break Your Recipe
Fill the cupcake liners only halfway full. Not 2/3, not 3/4, not all the way to the top. Half full. You will question yourself as you pour in the batter. Really? This is ALL that I’m using for each cupcake? The answer is yes, that is all you are using for each cupcake.
- If you fill the liners too full, the cupcakes will overflow.
- Too full = crisp mushroom tops
- Too full = sinking in the center
Got that? Halfway full! Halfway full!
Now that the cupcakes are baked and your self control is fading quickly, it’s time to frost them. The frosting flavor is completely up to you. We have a plethora of options on this site from chocolate buttercream and rainbow chip frosting to strawberry frosting, vanilla buttercream, salted caramel frosting, cream cheese frosting, and even a black chocolate buttercream frosting that we developed with these black velvet cupcakes. Keeping things even (though highly indulgent) with chocolate buttercream and a friendly dose of chocolate sprinkles.
And layer that buttercream on nice and tall. (I used Wilton 1M!)
I don’t normally reach for chocolate desserts if there’s a fruity one on the menu, but I would gladly unwrap one of these over any other choice.
By the way, this recipe transfers beautifully into cake pans to make a 6-inch cake.
Print
Super Moist Chocolate Cupcakes
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours, 35 minutes (includes cooling)
- Yield: 12-14 cupcakes
- Category: Cupcakes
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Made from simple everyday ingredients, this easy chocolate cupcake recipe will be your new favorite. For best results, use natural cocoa powder and buttermilk. These chocolate cupcakes taste completely over-the-top with chocolate buttercream!
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup (94g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1/2 cup (41g) unsweetened natural cocoa powder*
- 1 teaspoon espresso powder or instant espresso*
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature*
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup (100g) packed light brown sugar
- 1/3 cup (80ml) vegetable or canola oil (or melted coconut oil)
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup (120ml) buttermilk, at room temperature*
- chocolate buttercream and sprinkles for decorating
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C). Line a 12-count muffin pan with cupcake liners. Line a second pan with 2 liners—this recipe makes about 14 cupcakes. Set aside.
- Whisk the flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl until thoroughly combined. Set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, granulated sugar, brown sugar, oil, and vanilla together until completely smooth. Pour half of the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Then half of the buttermilk. Gently whisk for a few seconds. Repeat with the remaining wet ingredients and buttermilk. Stir until *just* combined; do not overmix. The batter will be thin.
- Pour or spoon the batter into the liners. Fill only halfway (this is imperative! only halfway!) to avoid spilling over the sides or sinking. Bake for 18-21 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before frosting.
- Frost cooled cupcakes with chocolate buttercream. You can swipe the frosting on with an icing knife or use a piping tip such as Wilton 1M. Leftover cupcakes keep well covered tightly in the refrigerator for 3 days. I recommend a cupcake carrier for storing and transporting decorated cupcakes.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: You can bake the cupcakes 1 day in advance. Keep cupcakes covered tightly at room temperature and frost the day of serving. Unfrosted cupcakes can be frozen up to 2 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and bring to room temperature before frosting and serving.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): 12-count Muffin Pan | Cupcake Liners | Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Piping Bags (Reusable or Disposable) | Wilton 1M Piping Tip | Icing Knife | Cupcake Carrier (for storage)
- Mini Cupcakes: Fill mini liners only halfway and bake for 10-12 minutes at 350°F (177°C).
- Cake: Here’s my chocolate layer cake recipe.
- Cocoa Powder: Use natural cocoa powder, not Dutch-process. See Dutch-process vs natural cocoa powder for more information.
- Espresso Powder: Espresso powder deepens the chocolate flavor. You can skip it or use 1 teaspoon of instant coffee powder instead.
- Why Room Temperature? All refrigerated items should be at room temperature so the batter mixes together easily and evenly. Read more about the importance of room temperature ingredients.
- Buttermilk: Buttermilk is required for this recipe. You can make your own DIY buttermilk substitute if needed. Add 1 teaspoon of white vinegar or lemon juice to a liquid measuring cup. Then add enough whole milk to the same measuring cup until it reaches 1/2 cup. (In a pinch, lower fat or nondairy milks work for this soured milk, but the cupcakes won’t taste as moist or rich.) Stir it around and let sit for 5 minutes. The homemade “buttermilk” will be somewhat curdled and ready to use in the recipe.
- Be sure to check out my 10 tips for baking the BEST cupcakes before you begin!
Reader Comments and Reviews
I baked it today. Did not have light brown sugar so used dark brown, and a couple tablespoons less. They did turn out moist at 18 minutes. Filled exactly halfway, but I had 16 cupcakes. Not as chocolaty as I like, and a half cup of cocoa is a lot. I think the frosting will make it even better.
Wow wow wow!! Baked these yesterday as a trial run for easter cupcakes and they were absolutely amazing!! Every bit the moist chocolatey cake described in the recipe!! I did only bake mine for 16 mins on 165 degrees as having tried and practiced previously with sallys vanilla cupcakes this is perfect for keeping them moist and it worked for these chocolate ones too!! I have an electric fan assisted oven and tends to cook things much quicker than my previous gas oven! Having your ingredients at room temp is a must also!!
This recipe is great! I have baked it many times for my family, and I have found out how to make it egg, dairy, and sugar, free!
Amazing recipe that I’ve used multiple times and it’s always well received. Thanks
These were good! I managed to get 16 cupcakes out of mine. I’m wondering if the people who had dry cupcakes baked them for too long. Mine only needed 15 minutes in the oven. They would have been crispy at 18 minutes!
Hi Sally! Thank you for being SO incredibly generous in your feedback and suggestions on all our questions 🙂
I’ll be making this batter as a three layer 6” cake for my boyfriend this weekend and would LOVE to introduce a rum flavor into the mix. Already calculated how to do that for my frosting, but I’m less confident about modifications to batter and am wondering: would you recommend adding about a few tablespoons of rum in addition to the buttermilk? Or sub out some of that other liquid? Or not at all — ha!
With gratitude,
Annie
Hi Annie, We haven’t tested it but you can try replacing a few tablespoons of the buttermilk with rum (I wouldn’t add additional liquid to the batter or it would be too thin). If the flavor isn’t coming through you can also try making a rum simple syrup to brush on the finished cakes. Let us know what you try!
The bad news: I forgot to actually add the rum for my desired variation. The good news: the cake recipe was PERFECTION as written. So good! I used 3x 6” Fat Daddio pans and homemade cake strips from YouTube, which were enough to sell me on buying proper ones. No trimming needed and rave reviews. A great chocolate cake recipe and look forward to trying with more frostings. Thanks!
Hands down the best chocolate cupcake recipe I’ve ever used! I see some of the one and two star reviews and can’t help but think user error. If you know how to measure your ingredients and follow the directions these come out perfect every time. I prefer to use coconut oil for my oil, and it does give them a slight coconut flavor, so you could certainly use vegetable oil or another kind if you don’t want that. Thank you, Sally!!!
I’ve tried a few chocolate cupcake recipes that I’ve found online and I have failed everytime. I had success with your banana cake recipe, so I decided I would give it a go. Yes!! at last. I succeeded. Thank you for the easy step by step instuctions, and a brilliant recipe. You’ve renewed my zest for baking.
Hi Sally, I love your recipes and am excited to try this one for my daughter’s birthday party tomorrow. I have some cake flour leftover from a delicious vanilla cake that I made from your recipe last weekend. Should I use it in this recipe? Or is there a reason that all-purpose flour is better here? Thanks for all the great content! I still haven’t gotten over the amazing lemon cupcakes I made from your recipe last summer.
Hi Lisa, We don’t recommend using cake flour in this recipe- it’s simply too light for this batter. Cocoa powder is extremely light and takes the place of some all-purpose flour in this recipe, so we already have very light cupcakes.
used this exact recipe for 2 six inch cakes and it was amazing! moist and just the right amount of chocolate flavor without being too rich.
Sally,
I just wanted to say this is the best chocolate cupcake recipe I have ever used by far. This will be the 3rd time I’ve made them and it is my new go-to for quick recipes in a pinch. You rock, thank you. 🙂
I was concerned based on some of the recent reviews that these were dry. So glad I did not let those deter me! These are so good. Very chocolatey and moist. These truly are a go-to recipe. Thanks Sally!
3rd time making this recipe and it’s always a success!! we bake 12 cupcakes every time and they come out very moist and perfect. The choc buttercream frosting is a must, we just used about one third of the icing sugar and no salt though . This is a great recipe to make with my little 4 yr-old, thank you for all your wisdom Sally!! xx
Made these last weekend. So delicous, so moist, so rich, soooooooooo good. I got 12 cupcakes from the recipe. I used your chocolate butter cream icing but halfed the recipe and it was perfect, it complimented the cupcakes well. At this rate if I continue trying your recipes I won’t be able to keep off this weight, haha.
Best cupcakes ever!!!! My son doesn’t usually enjoy sweet stuff but couldn’t get enough of these … super moist and delicious … they’ve quickly become a family favourite.
These cupcakes are just amazing! I baked it for my grandparents and it was so good! Everything on your blog is the best.
Very disappointing. I followed the recipe so carefully by weight and I only filled the casings halfway. They’ve risen really high and all over the sides of the casing! What a mess and completely unusable. One very stressed mom who didn’t need this disaster in her life right now!
I’ve tried this recipe multiple times and it’s always a hit! I wanted to know if I can make an egg free version of this with flax egg? Would you recommend it or something else to substitute the eggs?
Hi Shika, we haven’t tested this recipe with flax egg, but let us know how it goes if you give it a try!
This recipe makes more like 16-18 cupcakes for me. I do live at 5000+ ft above sea level and I did add 1 Tbsp espresso powder. I divided the batter among 15 cupcakes but they were still too full! They also took longer to bake which is typical for baking at elevation. I know better for next time. They weren’t pretty but they were delicious! Everybody: Sally means it when she says “fill halfway”!
These cupcakes are just amazing! This will definitely be my go to chocolate cupcake recipe. They were so moist and chocolately. Sad to see some of the bad experiences with this recipe in the reviews because I made this recipe two times two different ways. The 1st time I mixed all the wet ingredients together, and then added them to the dry. The 2nd time I followed the exact instructions for adding the wet ingredients to the dry, and both times they came out perfectly moist and delicious.
I’ve tried multiple times making this recipe measured by weight so everything is correct and making sure not to over mix or over fill the cupcake tins every time there is way to many air bubbles, I kept trying because usually your recipes are amazing! This one not so much
Mind came a bit crisp on the top… maybe baked a bit too long?
I made these today and followed the recipe exactly but for some reason they are very dry, definitely not moist. Not sure what went wrong. I’m so sad, using another recipe from this site for a cake tomorrow and hoping it turns out better.
I made these today for the first time and they only took 15 mins in my oven. I also found them so crumbly and dry and I followed the instructions. Not the moiste cake I was hoping for.
So disappointing! I’ve been weighing my flour. I realized I use way too much by scooping it out of the bag and leveling against the side of the bag. Hope this helps 🙂
I made this recipe today and got 16 cupcakes and they were delicious! I checked them at 14 mins and they were done. Very soft and moist. I also added espresso powder to them like you mentioned in your chocolate cake recipe. Wonderful
Sadly, I also found these to be dry. They weren’t bad, per se, they are still edible, but not the amazing, moist cupcake I was hoping for. I even weighed my ingredients and turned down my oven. I also found the buttercream frosting to only be “meh.” On the other hand, I also made Sally’s carrot-coconut cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and topped them with toasted coconut. Amazing! So good.
I’ve substituted with olive oil. I’ve also taken away 1/4 of the sugar to suit our taste. It’s moist and delicious!
Hi Sally,
Always love your recipes!! Is cupcake recipe different than cake recipe?
also can I use cake flour instead of AP flour for cupcakes? I noticed a lot of your cupcake recipes uses AP flour, is there a reason? 🙂
Hi Karen! This cupcake recipe is slightly different than our triple chocolate cake. We don’t recommend using cake flour in this recipe- it’s simply too light for this batter. Cocoa powder is extremely light and takes the place of some all-purpose flour in this recipe, so we already have very light cupcakes.
Made these and only filled the muffin tin 1/2 way as recommended and they rose perfectly. I have a convection oven so the cupcakes cooked in just 11 mins at 350. Thanks again Sally for another delightful recipe.
My cupcakes sank in the middle and even though I followed the recipe exactly, I had enough batter for 18 cupcakes. Any idea what went wrong? They taste great and are light and spongy.
Hi Karen, we’re glad you enjoyed them! Sinking cupcakes are almost always caused by over-filling the liners. Be sure to only fill them with batter halfway!
Hey Sally !
I tried these yesterday and they came out so fluffy , light and moist.
I added a tsp of coffee to bring out the flavour a bit more and topped them up with chocolate ganache.
They were an absolute hit with my friends !
These are NOT moist in the least. Quite possibly the driest cupcakes I’ve made.
Hey Sally! I enjoyed this recipe a lot, but my cupcakes ended up having a lot of air bubbles on the top when I took them out. Any thoughts on why this happened?
Thank you!
Hi Morgan, thank you so much for making these cupcakes! Small bubbles in cakes are normal, but if you have larger bubbles or holes in your cupcakes it could be from any number of reasons. Some common causes of air bubbles are over-mixing the batter, not having all of your ingredients at room temperature, using too much leaveners, or adding the eggs all at once instead of one at a time. Hope this helps for next time!