Ever find yourself with a craving for chocolate cupcakes but not quite ready to commit to making an entire batch of homemade cupcakes from scratch?
It happens to me more often than I’d like to admit, which is why I came up with these Small Batch Chocolate Cupcakes!
Made using a few baking hacks, these Small Batch Chocolate Cupcakes are the perfect easy chocolate cupcakes for when you just NEED a cupcake but not an entire batch!
Sometimes you just want a little bit of cake, but don’t feel like making a whole cake. Or a whole batch of cupcakes, for that matter. This cupcakes recipe is your solution: small batch chocolate cupcakes!
When I want a cupcake, I don’t feel like going through all the motions of baking. Lugging out the KitchenAid, waiting for butter to soften (although I do have these handy tips for softening butter fast!) or scalding milk.
My small batch chocolate cupcakes removes those steps by microwaving the milk (makeshift scalding) and then adding butter to the milk to help it soften.
You want to avoid fully melting the butter, otherwise it isn’t the right consistency for baking and your cupcakes will be sloppy and wet, never fully setting.
As long as the butter is soft enough, there is no need for a stand mixer, just a good, old fashioned spatula and arm strength. Talk about making these cupcakes from scratch easy!
The one step I don’t skip is sifting the dry ingredients. This leads to baking powder and salt not being equally distributed throughout the batter and lumps of flour. No one wants that in their chocolate cupcakes!
I tend to make these easy chocolate cupcakes when I have a random chocolate craving that just won’t go away but Small Batch Chocolate Cupcakes are a great recipe to have on hand when you just need to prepare dessert for a handful of people.
Now you have perfect homemade cupcakes and this is where I remind you that I am the worst cupcake decorator in the entire world. I buy frosting tips and watch the videos on Facebook with people decorating with ease and then mine look like a 2-year-old piped it out.
So, I compensate with sprinkles! Glorious, sprinkles! Or fun and festive icing like Oreo Frosting– to die for! Chocolate fudge frosting is also AH-mazing!
More easy cupcake recipes:
Stuffed German Chocolate Cupcakes
Banana Cupcakes
Peach Cupcake Recipe
Also try our Small Batch Vanilla Cupcakes!
Small Batch Chocolate Cupcakes
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup milk
- 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
- 5 tablespoons flour
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 6 tablespoons sugar
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter , cut into small pieces
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup chocolate frosting*
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line muffin tin with 6 cupcake liners.
- Heat milk in a microwave safe bowl for 30 seconds. Add chopped butter and stir. Allow to sit for 2-3 minutes so the butter further softens.
- While milk and butter rests, sift together cocoa flour, baking powder and fine sea salt.Set aside.
- Add sugar, vanilla and a lightly beaten egg to the milk mixture. Stir well, mixture will be lumpy.
- Add dry ingredients and blend until you no longer see streaks of butter, about 50-ish strokes.
- Equally divide cupcake batter into 6 muffin liners, filling about 3/4 of the way.
- Bake for 15-17 minutes or until they pass the toothpick test. Remove and allow to cool fully.
- When cool, frost and decorate as desired.
- If you’ve tried this recipe, make sure to come back and let us know how it was!
Notes
Nutrition
We love CHOCOLATE!!!!! And thus, we love celebrating National Chocolate Day! I’m part of a fun group of bloggers who celebrate our favorite food holidays by making some pretty delicious and inventive recipes. Here are the recipes we’ve come up and also some other fabulous chocolo-holic recipes.
- Thick Chocolate Chip cookies with Pecans from Ashlee Marie
- Chocolate Pudding from Creations by Kara
- Mexican Hot Chocolate Pudding Cake from Crumb
- Mexican Hot Chocolate from Real Mom Kitchen
- Instant Pot Chocolate Bundt Cake from 365 Days of Slow Cooking and Pressure Cooking
- Chocolate Cupcakes with a Nutella Mascarpone Frosting from An Italian in my Kitchen
- Fudge Cookies from Simply Stacie
- Homemade Chocolate Syrup from The Baker Upstairs
- Chocolate Molten Lava Cakes from Supergolden Bakes
And even more chocolate recipes!
Made these today and substituted GF All-purpose flour. They turned out amazing! Light and fluffy texture with a perfect cake crumb. Paired with homemade chocolate buttercream frosting, they were perfect. Everyone enjoyed them and no one even suspected that they were gluten free.
Yay! I love to hear that and thank YOU for stopping by to let us know. It means a lot!
I love this small batch, perfect for me and my husband. Looking forward to trying them.
What a brilliant idea! I’m always bringing my leftover baked goods at the office because I don’t trust myself not to eat everything in one sitting, but this is even better because I won’t have any leftovers in the first place. (My coworkers might disagree about whether or not that’s a good thing, though.)
Heat cup in a microwave safe bowl for 30 seconds. Add chopped butter and stir. Allow to sit for 2-3 minutes so the butter further softens.
While milk and butter rests,
Did I miss something? Should I add the milk to the butter?
Thanks for catching that, Karen! It is supposed to be heat MILK in microwave safe bowl. It is fixed.
The main reason I hardly ever make cupcakes is because I hate ending up with a huge batch. Leftovers just scream at me to eat them! This would be a perfect solution. They look super yummy too, especially with homemade chocolate frosting!
Oh, man! These are totally dangerous! The only thing that stops me from eating cupcakes every day is that I would have to make a huge batch. If I can make a small batch, then there’s really no reason not to be eating cupcakes pretty much all of the time. 🙂 These cupcakes look so chocolatey and delicious, and I can’t wait to try them!