Chocolate is love. It is therapy. Happiness. Sanity. It is beautiful.
If you don’t agree, I think you need to spend some more time with good chocolate. If you do agree, hello new friend 🙂 I like you!
I love chocolate in all its forms pretty much, except for white (not a huge fan of white chocolate, too sweet for me). But chocolate is even better when it is in multiple forms in the same dessert. Different textures, different levels of sweetness or bitterness but all adding to the magic of the dish.
These cupcakes and moist, deeply chocolatey but not too sweet and the buttercream adds that oomph with its lighter, slightly sweeter, buttery texture. Together, these are a match made in heaven!
I modified this recipe from something my best friend makes and was kind enough to share with me. I’ve added a little bit of coffee to amp up the chocolate flavour and have reduced the sugar from the original recipe to suit my taste preferences. There is a common myth that eggless cakes/cupcakes can’t be moist or are too dense. This is neither. The hot water gives it that lovely moist crumb and keeps it light. Making sure that the flour is not overworked is critical to ensuring it is not dense. Bake these till just done and you will have these little bites of magic ready!
These cupcakes come together fairly quickly and are super delicious. They are ironically both light as well as decadent at the same time. I normally don’t eat too much of the desserts I bake (overwhelmed with the aromas while prepping and baking), but for these I made an exception!! And when I took these to work, they vanished within 10 minutes. I kid you not. So So So So Good! Give it a go!
I definitely need to work on my piping skills, very high up on my skill enhancement agenda 🙂 Hopefully, there will be another round of photos for this post soon, with improved piping. I also plan to experiment with Swiss and French buttercream (more on that in a separate post) and not just stick to American buttercream.
Eggless chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream
Ingredients
Cupcakes:
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegetable/canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp vinegar
1 cup hot water + 1 tsp instant coffee powder mixed well
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1.5 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
Buttercream:
100g softened butter
3/4 cup icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp cream or milk
Directions
- Place cupcake liners in a cupcake tray (in case you don’t have liners, butter the mould). This recipe works for 12 cupcakes.
- Pre heat the oven to 175C
- Sift together the flour, cocoa, salt and baking soda. Heat a cup of warm water and add the coffee to it and mix well.
- In a bowl, whisk together oil and sugar until they are mixed well (about 1-2 minutes)
- Add the vanilla extract and vinegar and whisk for 5-10 seconds
- Pour in the warm water (not boiling) and coffee mixture and whisk till combined
- Slowly fold in the the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined. Do not overmix the batter as that can lead to excess gluten formation
- Fill the moulds 2/3 full (so that the cupcakes rise well and don’t overflow)
- Bake for 20-25 minutes until tester comes out clean or the cupcakes spring back when touched
- Let them cool in the liners for 15-20 minutes while you work on the buttercream
- For the buttercream, make sure that the butter is extremely soft as this when whisked, will ensure that the buttercream is light and not stodgy
- Whisk the butter till it is lighter, pale and fluffy (about 5 minutes)
- Add the icing sugar and mix for another 1-2 minutes. Make sure the sugar is sifted so that there are no lumps. Mix in the vanilla.
- Sift in cocoa and salt and mix well till the buttercream is smooth
- Add in 1 tbsp of cream/milk and combine. If the consistency is as per your liking, don’t add more. Else, if you want it slightly more fluid, add another tbsp. In case you want to thicken the buttercream, add a little more sugar.
- Transfer the buttercream into a piping bag, with a piping tip attached (I used the star piping tip). With your thumb move all the buttercream down into the bag and twist the top shut
- Start piping the buttercream onto the cooled cupcakes in a circular form, starting with the outside of the top surface and finishing at the centre. Feel free to try different piping tips and designs basis what you like best 🙂 Enjoy!
My Tuck Box 
Love these beautiful deep brown chocolate cupcakes !
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Thanks 🙂
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Lovely chocolate cup cakes ❤️
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