Easy Chocolate Easter Cupcakes

5 from 1 vote

Easy Chocolate Easter Cupcakes

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!

Course Cake, Dessert, Pudding

Cuisine British

Prep Time 25

Cook Time 15

Total Time 40

Servings cupcakes

Calories 235kcal

Author Eb Gargano

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!

Metric - US Customary

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.

Nutrition