I love chocolate…
So naturally, when I started experimenting with baking cupcakes from scratch (several years ago) I began a quest for the perfect chocolate cupcakes. I worked through several dozen recipes and of course, didn’t have too much trouble finding people willing to eat my “experiments.”
I finally found a recipe titled Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Cake, hmm, “…Perfectly Chocolate”, sounds about right to me! The first time I made it, I used Hershey’s unsweeted cocoa (as the recipe calls for). They turned out pretty good. The next time I made them, I used Ghirardelli brand unsweetened cocoa, and… perfect! The Ghirardelli brand gave a much deeper chocolate flavor. So I’d highly recomend using either Ghirardelli brand unsweetened cocoa, or the best quality brand you can find. You can really taste the difference. Since discovering this recipe, I’ve made it dozens and dozens of times. And every time, it’s delicious! The cake has a nice light and fluffy texture and a rich chocolate flavor.
Perfectly Chocolate Cupcakes
(makes 24-27 standard sized cupcakes)
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa (best quality available)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (best quality available)
1 cup boiling water
Directions-
Line muffin tin with paper liners. Heat oven to 350*F.
In a large mixing bowl, stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. Beat on medium speed for one minute.
Stir in boiling water (the batter will be thin, don’t worry, this is right).
Fill liners 2/3 full with batter. (I usually put the batter into a large measuring cup with a pour spout, and then pour the batter into the liners.)
Bake cupcakes for aproximately 18-22 minutes.
Cool completely on wire rack before frosting.
Recipe source- Hershey’s
Try the recipe HERE for either vanilla or chocolate (my favorite!) cream cheese frosting.
Perfectly Chocolate Cupcakes Recipe
Perfectly Chocolate Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa best quality available
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract best quality available
- 1 cup boiling water
Instructions
- Line muffin tin with paper liners. Heat oven to 350*F.
- In a large mixing bowl, stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. Beat on medium speed for one minute.
- Stir in boiling water (the batter will be thin, don’t worry, this is right).
- Fill liners 2/3 full with batter. (I usually put the batter into a large measuring cup with a pour spout, and then pour the batter into the liners.)
- Bake cupcakes for approximately 18-22 minutes.
- Cool completely on wire rack before frosting.
To get the dome on the cupcake use cold eggs
I took my first stab at making cupcakes this week and started with your perfect vanilla cupcakes recipe. They turned out AMAZING! You made me look like I’ve done this before… the chocolate cupcake recipe, on the other hand, not so delicious. I will admit I searched for Ghirardelli and came up short, so Hershey’s it was. The taste was actually quite good, but my major issue was that I cooked them for only 20 minutes and they were crispy on the edges and stuck terribly to the top edge of the liner. Also the bottom had a huge glob of cupcake stuck to it. Any suggestions? Thanks for your great blog!
Crystal, I’m so glad you enjoyed my vanilla cupcake recipe. Baking times can vary a bit, so feel free to experiment. You may want to try different liners as well.
Love these cupcakes. They have become my favorite chocolate cupcake recipe. The only change I make is I swap unsweetened applesauce for the veggie oil, equal parts, and they still come out delclious.
I brought them into work and one of the girls took a bite and said these taste so… healthy and clean.
Thanks for the great post.
Love your recipe! Where can I find brown cupcake liners?
Thank you for the replay.
I already made them and i think i got it right because they were delicious! 🙂 But not pretty, by my own fault. I still don’t master the frosting situation…
When i get them to look as good as they taste i will take a lot of pictures!
Thank you again*
Hi! I found your blog yesterday looking for a flawless chocolate cupcake recipe, needlees tosay that i was lost for a couple of hours in here lookinhg through everything else… 🙂
I was hoping you could help with one thing, i realy want to try these but i’m from Portugal and i’m not quite sure how to “translate” the measures…
I roughly turned the cups measures into these grams and ml measures, could you tell me if this is correct?
365g Sugar
250g Flour
100g Cocoa
1 ½ spoon Baking Powder
1 ½ spoon Baking Soda
1 spoon Salt
2 Egs
240ml Whole Milk
120ml Vegetable Oil
2 spoons Vanilla Extract
240ml Bowling Water
Thank you so much for the blog, I’m really dying to try them so i can put them in my blog (although is not a coking blog) and to make them to a friends Bridal Shower.
Cacd
Cluadia- I have never baked using grams or ml, so I would have no way to know without using Google and converting the measurements the best I could. I’m sure if you used a conversion chart, you have reached a very close match. Best of luck!
I loved your vanilla cupcakes so I figured I’d try these. Would this recipe work with coffee instead of boiling water?
Yes. If you are using high quality cocoa, coffee is not necessary, but if you can only get ahold of Hershey’s cocoa (for example), using coffee in place of the hot water will help deepen the cocoa flavor, and will leave no coffee flavor.
Glory, I made these this weekend and they were fabulous! Thanks for the great recipe as always 🙂
Yay, so glad you enjoyed them! They are always a favorite in our house!
Looking forward to seeing you at Cookie Con!
These are amazing!! I’m quite new to this whole homemade baking bit… as in… this was my first attempt at baking a homemade cupcake!! I must say, I’m extremely grateful that your recipe was the first I came across!!! The only problem i ran into is that the second and third batch tasted a bit off. The first batch was ridiculously amazing!! but the last two had a bit of an eggyv (?) taste to it. Am i supposed to keep it in the refrigerator between pouring cupcakes or did i not mix it enough before pouring again? I know it sounds like a silly question, I’m just not sure if I’m doing something wrong.
Lynn, You do not need to do anything special with the batter while the first, or second batches are baking. I have never tasted any difference within the batches. Often the second and third batches bake up a bit better, with a nicer dome, because the baking soda has already had time to activate. Other than that, there should be no difference. Make sure you are using the best quality cocoa and vanilla you can find, those two ingredients make a big difference.
I have tried many chocolate cupcake recipes and this one got the best reviews from everyone I’ve made them for!! love!!