Learn how to make the best mini chocolate cupcakes with raspberry frosting with this easy recipe. These moist cupcakes are very easy to make and the frosting is made with real raspberry purée that is cooked down into a concentrated syrup. You can make this raspberry frosting with frozen raspberries or even fresh. These chocolate raspberry cupcakes have an intense raspberry flavour you are going to love!
These chocolate raspberry cupcakes are proof that you can flavour American buttercream with a fruit purée, as long as you are smart about it.
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Ingredients And Substitutions
Normally, I'm an all-butter kind of girl, but I find with chocolate cakes, butter-based recipes, sadly, can be a bit dry. Oil makes a great baking substitution in cases like this because it provides a little more fat and because it's liquid at room temperature, oil gives baked goods a more moist texture. So, this cake recipe calls for oil, not butter, but it yields a light, moist cake that everybody loves and its texture makes up for the absence of butter. Of course, if you have a moist all-butter alternative for me, do send it my way! I'd really appreciate that. In the meantime, here is an easy moist chocolate cupcake recipe that works every time.
There are a few things to note about the ingredients in these dark chocolate cupcakes:
- cocoa—I bake with Dutch-processed cocoa powder. I like to use the cocoa powder from Cacao Barry on Amazon
- salt—If you are using regular table salt instead of Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt, add half the amount to avoid the chocolate cakes being too salty.
- coffee—You can use warm coffee, espresso, or water for the cake batter.
- buttermilk—If you don't have buttermilk, you can make buttermilk from milk and vinegar (1 tablespoon (15 mL) of white or cider vinegar for every 1 cup (250 mL) of milk.
- oil—Use a flavourless, neutral oil like canola or grapeseed oil. Avoid extra virgin olive oil unless you want to taste it! Melted butter would also work in this recipe, but oil creates a more tender, moist cupcake. You can do half butter, half oil to get the flavour of the butter with the moist texture from the oil.
- butter—Use softened unsalted butter for the frosting. Salted may work, or preferably semi-salted butter to avoid making the raspberry buttercream overly salty.
- raspberries—you can use fresh or frozen raspberries to make this raspberry frosting. The berries are cooked to release the water trapped inside, which is then boiled off so it doesn't matter whether the berries are fresh or frozen.
Please see the recipe card for a complete list of the exact ingredients and quantities.
How To Add Raspberry Flavour To Frostings And Buttercreams
The trouble with fruit-infused frostings is the fruit. Fruit and berries (like raspberries) have a high water content. The flavour is rather weak if you stir the raw fruit directly into a frosting or buttercream (or cake batter). For a strong flavour, you would have to add a ton of fruit to properly flavour the buttercream, but that would curdle the frosting because berries contain so much water. So, how do we make raspberry-flavoured frostings and desserts?
There are a few ways to make raspberry-flavoured frosting without compromising on texture or taste:
- Emulsions and extracts: Just like vanilla extract, you can buy fruit emulsions, flavour oils, and extracts. For example, there's a raspberry emulsion you can for flavouring baked goods. These provide an easy way to add flavour without having to add tons of fruit. Extracts and emulsions can be added in the same way as vanilla extract, in teaspoon amounts.
- Cooked purées and jams: if you bring the mashed fruit to a boil (with or without sugar), you can cook the mixture to reduce it and remove much of the water. The cooled fruit concentrate or jam can then be added to a buttercream or frosting, without affecting the texture too much. Concentrated fruit purées and jams are a good way to add berry flavour to buttercream. For this method, both fresh and frozen raspberries work very well.
- Freeze-dried fruit powders: this is another great way of adding flavour without adding water. Freeze-dried fruit are sold whole or in powder form. I'd get the powder if I had a choice. With a freeze-dried raspberry powder, all you have to do is add it to your buttercream recipe by the spoonful. This is a great way of adding raspberry colour and flavour to a frosting.
How To Make Moist Chocolate Cupcakes
The moist chocolate cupcake recipe (adapted from Martha Stewart one-bowl chocolate cupcakes) is what I refer to as a cake mix cake recipe. Well, it's a cake mix made from scratch, of course. It is the easiest chocolate cupcake recipe you can make and doesn't require a mixer! You combine all the dry ingredients in one bowl. Combine all the wet ingredients in another bowl. Then mix the two together. Very easy.
Step 1—Sift the dry ingredients together (image 1) then whisk them well to ensure they are properly incorporated and evenly mixed (image 2). I like to use a Danish dough whisk.
Step 2—Combine the wet ingredients in a separate bowl with a spout (or a large liquid measuring cup) (image 3) then pour them over the dry ingredients (image 4).
Note: If you are feeling lazy, you can even just measure out the wet ingredients and place them directly into the bowl with the dry ingredients, in a one-bowl process. Super easy. You can do this with a mixer, but a spoon or whisk will also do the trick. This is the same mixing method as for muffins.
Step 5—Whisk them just until mixed but do not overmix (image 5). At this point you can use this batter to make layer cakes, full-size cupcakes, or mini cupcakes (which is what I did), dividing the batter among paper-lined mini muffin pans. Bake them until a cake tester comes out clean and the surface is set.
Step 6—While the cupcakes are cooling, you will cook down the raspberry purée, first straining it to remove the seeds (image 6) so that you can concentrate the raspberry juice by cooking off the water in a saucepan.
The frosting recipe involves cooking/mashing fresh (or frozen) raspberries in a small saucepan so that they release their raspberry juice. Then you strain the juice and put it back on the stove to cook it down into a thick raspberry concentrate that is used to colour and flavour the cupcakes. It's genius. The frosting tastes intensely of raspberry. The colour is genuine, from the fruit. No dyes or food colouring is needed. I would do this again with other berries for sure.
Tip: Save the leftover raspberry pulp to spread on buttered toast with a drizzling of honey or maple syrup. Or have it with oatmeal in the morning or plain yogurt and crunchy granola.
This is an American-style buttercream, meaning it's made from icing sugar and butter. This differs from an Italian meringue buttercream, which is made with egg whites, sugar syrup, and butter. This technique of making a concentrated raspberry purée would also work to flavour Italian meringue buttercream, as would freeze-dried raspberry powder.
Step 7—Pipe the frosting on the cooled cupcakes. I like to use a Wilton 1M tip or a large star tip to create a cute swirl.
Frosting Alternatives
If you don't want to make a raspberry frosting, these moist cupcakes would pair really well with either this thick cream cheese frosting or this white chocolate cream cheese frosting without icing sugar. You could also pipe this chocolate fudge frosting on them.
I love the combination of chocolate and raspberry. These cupcakes are a perfect example of why this works. If you are a fan of this flavour pairing, here's a raspberry chocolate tart that you can also try, or a berry chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting.
Other Chocolate Recipes
If you love chocolate cake and all things chocolate, try these other chocolate desserts:
If you tried this recipe for the best chocolate cupcakes with raspberry frosting (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!
📖 Recipe
Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Frosting
Ingredients
Chocolate cupcakes
- 300 grams granulated sugar
- 195 grams bleached all-purpose flour sifted
- 69 grams Cacao Barry extra brute cocoa powder sifted
- 7.5 mL baking soda
- 3.75 mL baking powder
- 3.75 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
- 2 large egg(s)
- 178 grams buttermilk (1 % fat)
- 178 grams warm coffee or warm water
- 45 mL canola oil
- 5 mL pure vanilla extract
Raspberry frosting
- 340 grams fresh or frozen raspberries
- 115 grams unsalted butter softened
- 400 grams icing sugar sifted
- pink sanding sugar optional
Instructions
To make the chocolate cupcakes
- In a large bowl with a whisk, or in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, combine the sugar, flour cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, coffee (or water), canola oil, and vanilla.
- Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients in the mixer bowl, and mix them on low until the batter is liquid, glossy, and without lumps.
- Pour it into each of the liners until they are evenly filled to about ¾ the height of the liner. Don't overfill them because we don't want too much of a muffin top!
- Bake the cupcakes for about 12–15 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out completely clean. The cakes should spring back when tapped lightly.
- Let the cupcakes cool partly before transferring to a wire rack. Repeat the process of lining the pan with more paper liners, filling and baking the cupcakes until you've used up all of the chocolate cupcake batter.
To make the raspberry frosting and decorate
- In a small saucepan, heat the raspberries on low to extract the raspberry juice, mashing with a potato masher or the back of a spoon.
- Strain out the seeds and fruit pulp using a fine-meshed sieve and transfer the strained juice back to the pot. Save the raspberry pulp for breakfast!
- Heat the juice on medium to cook it down to about ¼–⅓ cup (60–80 mL). Let cool completely before using.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter with about 230 grams of icing sugar. Cream them together on low, then add the concentrated raspberry juice.
- Adjust the consistency of the frosting with the last 170 grams of icing sugar, beating well to make sure that it is smooth.
- To decorate: fill a piping bag fitted with a star tip (like a 1M tip you can get on Amazon) with the frosting. Pipe a rosette of frosting over each mini cupcake. Top with a pinch of sprinkles if using. Please note that the frosting will change colors slightly as it sits.
Notes
- I bake with Dutch-processed cocoa powder. I like to use the cocoa powder from Cacao Barry on Amazon
- If you are using regular table salt instead of Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt, add half the amount to avoid the chocolate cakes being too salty.
- You can use warm coffee or water for the cake batter.
- If you don't have buttermilk, you can make buttermilk from milk and vinegar (1 tablespoon (15 mL) of white or cider vinegar for every 1 cup (250 mL) of milk.
- Use a flavourless, neutral oil like canola or grapeseed oil. Avoid extra virgin olive oil unless you want to taste it!
Kelly L Cunningham says
This is a great recipe but just to let you know if you put the pink sanding sugar on it you are adding red coloring which I am personally trying to avoid. I know you put optional but just giving a heads up.