Tessa's Recipe Rundown
Taste: So much rich, delicious chocolate flavor.
Texture: The cupcake is moist and tender, the ganache filling is slightly fudgy, and the buttercream on top is thick and creamy. Heaven in every bite!
Ease: Fairly easy, but a little messy.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: Perfect cupcake for any chocolate lover.
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Chocolate Blackout Cupcakes are what chocoholics’ dreams are made of.
As a total chocoholic myself, recipes that contain chocolate in any form are generally what excite me the most – let alone a recipe that contains chocolate in this many forms!
The chocolate in these Chocolate Blackout Cupcakes hits you immediately. Especially if you take a big enough bite to reach the chocolate ganache filling right off the bat. There’s so much goodness in both taste and texture happening here that I encourage you to fully savor every moment.
These cupcakes are perfect for Halloween (especially if you add some white chocolate spiderwebs on top!) or Valentine’s Day (the perfect dessert for you and your chocolate-loving Valentine!).
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make Chocolate Blackout Cupcakes
How to Make Moist Chocolate Cupcakes:
- Weigh your ingredients. I highly recommend using a digital kitchen scale to weigh your ingredients. Without a scale, it’s so easy to accidentally add too much of your dry ingredients, especially flour and cocoa, resulting in dry, dense cupcakes. Learn more about how to measure ingredients here.
- Oil. Oil creates an ultra-moist texture and open, slightly spongy crumb which is perfect for chocolate cupcakes. Since oil is liquid at room temperature, it gives the palate a sensation of moisture even though it contains no water! Give your vegetable oil a sniff before using to make sure it’s fresh. Feel free to use melted coconut oil instead of vegetable oil. Learn more about Oil vs. Butter in Baking here.
- Dutch-processed cocoa powder, eggs, and vinegar. More on these ingredients just below.
What Type of Cocoa Powder Do I Need?
For the best rich chocolate cupcakes, use Dutch Processed Cocoa Powder to achieve a deeper color, and because it will typically contain more cocoa fat (learn more about cocoa powder here), resulting in more moist and tender cupcakes.
You can find Dutched cocoa in some specialty kitchen stores, or online here. I haven’t tried using black cocoa, but that should work just fine too. If you must use natural cocoa powder, that will work as well, but your cupcakes might not be as dark in color or as rich in flavor.
Why Are Eggs Used in Cupcakes?
The more whole eggs a cake or cupcake recipe has, the richer it’ll be. For this recipe, I added an extra egg yolk. This adds a touch more richness, chewiness, and structure, so the cupcake can stand up to a generous amount of frosting.
Why is There Vinegar in This Recipe?
This may seem like a strange ingredient, but I promise you won’t taste it in the final result. It simply helps to activate the baking soda to create tall, fluffy cupcakes.
Preventing Cupcake Liners from Sticking
It’s important to use high-quality liners to prevent sticking. These are my favorite cupcake liners that basically never stick. If liners sticking to your cupcakes are a common problem for you, check out my How to Prevent Cupcake Liners from Sticking post.
How to Fill Chocolate Blackout Cupcakes
Possibly the best part of this recipe, Chocolate Blackout Cupcakes are filled with a hidden pocket of rich and fudgy chocolate ganache. Filling cupcakes is made easy with one simple tool: an apple corer. Use the corer to evenly remove the center of each cupcake. Bonus: little cupcake scrap pieces for you to enjoy while finishing up in the kitchen 😉
How to Store Chocolate Blackout Cupcakes
Store Chocolate Blackout Cupcakes covered at room temperature for up to 1 day, or in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Dark Chocolate Buttercream
This buttercream has a LOT of chocolate in it, both in the form of melted chocolate and cocoa powder, so it’s thick, rich, and decadent. Feel free to play around with adding in more cream to thin it out, or more powdered sugar to thicken it up.
Interested in Learning More About the Science of Baking?
Check out my online baking class, The Magic of Baking! All of the video lessons, downloads, and side-by-side comparison photos are ready and waiting for you right now. It’ll show you how and why baking recipes work so you can bake with complete confidence.
More Chocolate Recipes:
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Ingredients
For the ganache filling:
- 2 ounces (57 grams) semisweet chocolate
- 1/4 cup (59 grams) heavy cream
For the cupcakes:
- 4 ounces (113 grams) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
- 1/3 cup (28 grams)
dark Dutch-processed cocoa powder - 1/2 cup (119 grams) boiling water
- 3/4 cup (95 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup (50 grams) packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 cup (113 grams) sour cream or plain yogurt, at room temperature
- 1/4 cup (56 grams) vegetable oil
- 2 large eggs plus one egg yolk, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons white vinegar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the frosting:
- 8 ounces (227 grams) bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled
- 3 cups (375 grams) powdered sugar, sifted
- 1/4 cup (21 grams) dark cocoa powder, sifted
- 8 ounces (227 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons heavy cream
Instructions
Make the filling:
- Place the chocolate and cream in a medium microwave-safe bowl and microwave until mixture is warmed, about 30 seconds. Whisk until smooth. Place mixture in refrigerator until just chilled and firmed, no longer than 30 minutes.
Make the cupcakes:
- Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350°F.
- In a medium heatproof bowl, add the chocolate and cocoa. Pour hot water over mixture. Cover and let stand for 5 minutes. Whisk mixture gently until smooth then set aside to cool.
- Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with high-quality cupcake liners.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.
- Whisk sour cream, oil, eggs, egg yolk, vinegar, and vanilla into the cooled chocolate mixture until smooth. Stir in the flour mixture until smooth, being careful not to overmix.
- Using a spring-loaded scoop, divide the batter evenly among prepared muffin cups. Bake until cupcakes are set and firm to the touch, about 17 to 20 minutes. Let cupcakes cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes before removing from pan to cool completely, about 1 hour. Cupcakes can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 day.
Fill the cupcakes:
- Using an apple corer or pairing knife, slice a small section of the center of the cupcake, being careful not to slice through the bottom. Fill each hole with 1 heaping teaspoon of the firmed ganache.
Make the buttercream:
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together the sugar, cocoa powder, and butter. Mix on low speed until well blended and then increase the speed to medium and beat for another 3 minutes. Scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl, as well as the mixer attachment. Add the salt, vanilla, cream, and cooled melted chocolate and beat on medium for 2 minutes, or until light and fluffy.
- Spread or pipe evenly over the filled cupcakes. Serve or store covered at room temperature for up to 1 day, or covered in the fridge for up to 3 days.
This post was published in 2018 and has been updated with additional baking tips and baking science information. Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
Great cupcakes. I made the cupcakes and frosting ahead of time and froze them. I made the ganache the morning of the party. My only issue was the frosting was so hard I wasn’t able to mix it again. I had to add about a half a cup of whipping cream and two Tbs. of hot water. Then I was able to whip it again. I used Ghirardelli’s bittersweet chocolate and Hersheys semi sweet chocolate chips for the ganache. We love it.
These cupcakes were exactly what I was looking for, rich & moist. I wanted to make a Jaffa cupcake (chocolate & orange) so I added a teaspoon of orange essence to the cake batter and filled them with orange curd instead of the chocolate ganache filling. I also used coffee instead of hot water in the batter. They were great & I will definitely make them again.
Wow, your additions sound amazing, Vicki!!
Hello! I am making these cupcakes for a friend’s birthday but I have to make them several days in advance. Do you think it’s best to freeze them assembled or freeze the cupcakes and assemble them after they have thawed?
Ooo what a lucky friend! For best results, I’d recommend freezing the cupcakes and assembling after they’re thawed. You can also prep the frosting 2-3 days ahead of time, place it in an airtight container in the fridge, then let it come to room temp before rewhipping in the mixer, too!
I recently used hot dark roast coffee in place of water in another dark chocolate cake do you think I could do the same with the cupcakes?
This will be my first time making these and I was just wondering if the ganache inside the cupcake hardens when it is in the refrigerator? I was hoping to make these a day before I need them and was not sure if it would be best to leave them on the counter or in the fridge. Thank you!
Hi Maddie! The ganache will harden a little to more of a fudgy consistency when chilled, so we recommend serving at room temperature, which will allow it to soften again, for maximum deliciousness. You can still store them in an airtight container in the fridge (as Tessa mentions in the Tip Box above the recipe) but allow them to sit at room temp for at least an hour before serving. I hope that helps! Happy Baking 🙂
Hi! I absolutely love this recipe and have made it a few times to RAVE reviews. My son has requested this for his birthday, but as a cake. Would you recommend doubling or tripling this recipe for a 2 layer cake? Thank you!
Hi Danielle! Yay! We’re so happy to hear that your son loves this cake so much. Tessa has a super handy guide to help turn cake into cupcakes and vice versa – check it out here! It will depend on your pan size, but if you’re using an 8-inch cake pan, you’ll need to double it. I hope this helps! Happy baking 🙂
Thank you so much! Turned out great!
So good! My first time making; my sister is the dark chocolate lover and I made them for her, but everything is so balanced you don’t have to like dark chocolate to enjoy this. The varying sweetness of the cake, ganache and frosting combined is
sorry question again. can i use the wincrest black cocoa powder for the cupcake? thank you
Hi Kathleen! We haven’t tried that, but it should work just fine! Of course, the cupcakes will be very dark, but they should be delicious, too! Let us know what you think if you give this a try! Happy baking!
Hi there, I have a quick question.. it doesn’t say sifted or not for the flour. I just read a great article by you that stated: For example, if the recipe calls for “1 cup flour, sifted,” measure the flour first and then sift. If a recipe calls for “1 cup sifted flour,” sift the flour first, then measure.
Do we measure first then sift? Or vice versa? And once it’s sifted, do we measure the exact amount in grams on a scale?
Thanks for all you do!!!!
Natalye
Hi Natalye! This recipe doesn’t require that you sift the flour – just the cocoa and powdered sugar, because they tend to clump. The rule of thumb for flour is just as you described, but you don’t need to worry about that for this recipe! Happy baking 🙂
Thank you for the clarification!
OMG!!!
Amazing chocolate flavor !!!
Love it veeeery much
Just use expensive chocolates or won’t taste the same
I will try your others recipes
Thanks ❤️