I was looking for an easy, moist, not too intensely chocolatey cupcake recipe to make for my son's fourth birthday last week. I read a lot of different recipes before I hit on this one from Simply Recipes. It sounded perfect - simple, moist, and not too rich for my little guy's young taste buds.
This recipe reminds me of the first cake I ever baked as a kid (of course it was chocolate.) I must have been about nine or ten and I remember it because the cake recipe in my kids' cookbook called for vinegar which struck me as odd even then. But it totally works!
It's no accident that this type of recipe was in a kids baking cookbook - the recipe is so simple and easy that a child can make it. No eggs to crack and beat, no butter to soften or melt - all you need to do is measure and mix!
I think the coffee in the recipe is essential to the flavor so don't skip it although you can use decaf if you're worried about the caffeine (I really would not worry about it unless you know from past experience that you're extremely sensitive to caffeine in baked goods.)
I've included links to some frosting recipes (including a vegan option) below but I have not tested any of these. I would include my own frosting recipe but I don't use an actual recipe - I usually just melt chocolate chips, butter, a little heavy cream, confectioners sugar and vanilla extract in a double boiler and whisk until it's smooth, adding what always feels like a shocking amount of powdered sugar throughout the process.
One note on the yield, Elise's recipe says it makes 12 cupcakes but I've made it twice now (it's that good!) and I feel that 12 is a little optimistic unless you want pretty small cupcakes. Ten is more realistic if you're shooting for a normal-sized cupcake.
But I've nattered on quite long enough. Without further ado, I give you the world's simplest, moistest chocolate cupcake recipe. And vegan to boot!
Easy, Moist (Vegan) Chocolate Cupcakes via Simply Recipes
Makes 10 cupcakes - if you want to make a cake, double the recipe and cook in two 8-inch round cake pans for 35-40 minutes
Ingredients
* 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
* 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
* 1 cup organic cane sugar (I use vanilla sugar - it adds an extra yum factor)
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1/2 tsp sea salt
* 1 cup of medium strength brewed coffee
* 1 Tbsp white vinegar
* 2 tsps vanilla extract
* 6 Tbsps (1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp) olive oil
* Unbleached cupcake liners (I prefer to use unbleached paper liners as I suspect some of the bleach must get transferred to the wet batter as it heats up.)
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners (you can also grease the tin instead but the liners are definitely easier and will prevent anything from sticking.)
2. Whisk the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl until there are no visible clumps. If you've got particularly clumpy cocoa or sugar, you can always sift the dry ingredients into the bowl, too.
3. In a small to medium-sized bowl, mix together the coffee (or water plus coffee granules), vinegar, vanilla extract, and olive oil.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir just to combine (mixture will be rather lumpy.)
5. Ladle the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about two-thirds of the way full. Put in the oven and bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until a bamboo skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
6. Remove from oven and cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove from the pan and let cool completely on a rack. Once cool, frost with the frosting of your choice and serve.
A few frosting options (first two are vegan) if you don't have one you like already (but please note that I haven't tried these recipes):
- Vegan Coconut Icing
- Vegan Chocolate Glaze
- Vanilla Frosting With a Whipped Cream-Like Consistency
- Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
- Buttercream Frosting (though I have to warn you that I practically had a heart attack just looking at the ingredients - it calls for 4 sticks of butter and 2 lbs of sugar just to frost 24 cupcakes or one 9-inch cake)
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8 comments:
Holy cow, these look good. I love a rich, moist chocolate cupcake any day. And your photography is stunning! Deliciousness - and I can't wait to try these asap!!
Thanks, Shannon Marie! You just made my afternoon. Hope you like them :)
Great! That looks very luscious.
I made these and the cupcakes turned out great. My other recipe (I'm posting below) never quite sets, but, I'm including it because the glaze recipe is amazing and worked great with these!
http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipe/glazed-chocolate-avocado-cupcakes/
I have made these twice and they turned out great.
My modifications:
1. I used gluten free flour + xantham gum (my baby boy is allergic to wheat).
2. I used banana instead of oil, same amount.
It is a dense and fluffy cake, super yummy!!!
I used a donut pan and my kids went crazy when they saw the "donuts".
Awesome recipe!!!
These look AMAZING!!
Hi Eve! Your blog once again saves the day! These were perfect when we needed birthday cupcakes that could accommodate all our guests! And I appreciated that didn't have to buy any special ingredients like vegan milk (that I'd only use a tiny bit of!) Because of diet restrictions (hence the vegan cupcakes), and the request from the birthday one asking for ganache instead of frosting, I just made my regular ganache into a vegan ganache with a ratio of 1oz unsweetened chocolate, 1 T sugar, maybe 1-2T coconut cream and enough decaf coffee (this is a preschool birthday, after all!) to make smooth (probably also around 2T). I had to test to make sure it would work, but obviously you'd scale up for a whole batch - 4oz unsweetened choc. to 4T sugar etc. is usually enough to cover a cake and our sweetness preference level. Maybe 2oz/2T for one batch of cupcakes, though 3 would be safer!
Excellent 👍. Sounds perfect. Happy birthday 🎉🥳
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