Delicious chocolate cupcakes, topped with chocolate buttercream and decorated with mini eggs – these Easy Chocolate Easter Cupcakes are quick and simple to make and require no special equipment or cake decoration skills!
A quick and simple Easter bake!
Fancy a bit of Easter baking? Want a quick and easy recipe that doesn’t require any special equipment or skills? Then these Easy Chocolate Easter Cupcakes fit the bill perfectly!
All you need to do is beat together butter and sugar. Then stir in eggs, flour and cocoa powder. Place 24 cupcake cases in 2 cupcake trays, then spoon in the mixture. Finally, bake in the oven for 13-15 minutes until just cooked. Allow to cool in the trays, then decorate with a simple chocolate buttercream and some mini eggs!
Not just mini eggs…
I have decorated these Easy Chocolate Easter Cupcakes with Cadbury’s mini eggs – I just love how pretty the pastel colours of the mini eggs look against the rich brown of the chocolate cupcakes…
But mini eggs are just one of a whole range of options. These Easter cupcakes would look just as good decorated with mini creme eggs (I find they look best cut in half), Smarties Orange Mini Eggs, After Eight Mini Eggs, Galaxy Enchanted Eggs, Milkybar Mini Eggs, or any other kind of mini chocolate eggs you like!
And when it’s not Easter, these chocolate cupcakes work really well with Smarties or M&Ms.
Perfect for making with children…
These easy peasy Easter cupcakes are the perfect bake to make with children. (In fact, I’ve been making variations on these cupcakes with my kids since they were toddlers!)
Younger children will love to help you stir together the ingredients and add mini eggs to the finished creation, while older kids will be able to do almost everything themselves! (Though, depending on their age and maturity, they may need supervision putting the cakes into the oven and taking them out again.)
No special equipment required!
If you don’t have much in the way of baking equipment, I have good news for you! These cupcakes do not require any specialist equipment. All you will need is a mixing bowl, 2 cupcake trays, 24 cupcake cases, a wooden spoon and an ordinary dinner knife!
How to store Chocolate Easter Cupcakes
To keep them fresh, store these Chocolate Easter Cupcakes in an airtight cake tin or plastic box.
How long will chocolate cupcakes keep?
These cupcakes will keep for up to a week, if kept in an airtight container. (Though they will taste at their best in the first 2-3 days.)
Can you freeze chocolate cupcakes?
Surprisingly, cupcakes freeze really well! However, you should freeze the cupcakes BEFORE decorating them. Once completely cold, place the cupcakes in a plastic lidded box and place the box in the freezer. The cupcakes should keep in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Defrost overnight at room temperature, then decorate as required.
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Easy Chocolate Easter Cupcakes
Ingredients
Chocolate Cupcakes:
- 225 g butter (or margarine) softened (see Note 1)
- 225 g caster sugar
- 4 large eggs at room temperature
- 225 g self-raising flour
- 50 g cocoa powder
- 4 tablespoons milk
Chocolate Buttercream:
- 100 g butter (or margarine) softened (see Note 1)
- 200 g icing (confectioner's) sugar sieved (this is really important or you will end up with lumpy icing!)
- 25 g cocoa powder sieved (this is really important or you will end up with lumpy icing!)
Decoration:
- 72 Cadbury’s Mini Eggs (roughly 240g / 8½oz)
- Or any other decoration you like!
Instructions
Making the cupcakes:
- Pre heat your oven to 180C / 160C fan / gas mark 4 / 350F. Put 24 cupcake cases in the holes of a cupcake tin. (See Note 3.)
- Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy looking. (See Note 2.)
- Add one egg and beat until combined. Repeat with the other eggs, adding them in one at a time.
- Add in half the flour and fold it in gently.
- Add in the cocoa powder and the remaining flour and fold in gently.
- Stir in the milk to loosen the cake batter slightly.
- Divide the mixture between the cupcake cases. (I find 1 heaped tablespoon of mixture per cupcake case is about right.)
- Put the cupcakes in your preheated oven for 13 minutes. After 13 minutes, get them out and check for doneness by pressing the tops. If they make a little crunchy sound, pop them in for 2 more minutes. If they don’t make a sound when you press the top, they are done. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the cupcake tray.
Decorating the cupcakes:
- Don’t try to decorate the cupcakes until they are completely cold! (They take about 1 hour to cool.)
- Put the softened butter and sieved icing sugar in a bowl and beat together until smooth. Add in the cocoa and beat again until evenly mixed in.
- Using a regular table knife, smooth a little of the chocolate buttercream onto the top of each cupcake and top with 3 mini eggs.
Notes
- I much prefer the taste of cupcakes made with butter, but the problem with butter is that, if it has been in the fridge, it is rock solid! However, I learnt a very simple trick from the amazing Mary Berry… Fill a bowl with lukewarm water (the temperature of a very little baby’s bathwater). Chop the butter into 1cm (½inch) cubes. Drop the cubes into the water and leave them for 3 minutes. After 3 minutes, tip the water out. (I use my hand to stop the little butter cubes coming out with the water.) And voila! You should now have perfectly soft butter.
- You can absolutely make these cupcakes with an electric mixer, if you prefer. Simply put all the cake ingredients in a large bowl and mix with an electric mixer for about 2 minutes until it looks like cake batter. However, I prefer to do things the old fashioned way (with a spoon and arm power!) and so I have given you my traditional method above.
- Use small cupcake cases which are 4.5cm (1¾inches) across the base and 3cm (1¼inches) deep
- Suitable for freezing. (Undecorated cupcakes only.)
- Nutrition information is approximate and meant as a guideline only.
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Jenny says
Was the perfect recipe to use for the PTA bake sale.
I never got to taste my tester cupcake – was gobbled up by my son! He told me it was delicious!