Mint Chocolate Cupcakes: These cupcakes, made from scratch, are full of chocolate flavor and topped with a beautiful green, cream cheese frosting if you desire.
Minty, chocolatey cupcakes are perfect for any time of year but they’re especially delicious around Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day.
With this chocolate cupcake recipe, we’ve provided a simple green, cream cheese frosting that you can top your cupcakes with, or you can use a mint buttercream frosting recipe, chocolate buttercream, or you can even choose your favorite frosting recipe.
Make sure to browse our other cupcake recipes too, so you can have one for every occasion! If you like chocolate cupcakes, you’ll especially love these Dirt Cupcakes and these Oreo Cupcakes, too!
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⭐️ Why This Recipe Works
- Minty Flavor: The surprising, light flavor of mint in a cupcake, combined with creamy, smooth, vanilla frosting is such a wonderful combo. We even added peppermint to our peppermint cupcakes and they were a hit!
- Frosting Options: Although we provide quick cream cheese frosting instructions, this chocolate mint cupcake pairs wonderfully with many frosting options!
🧾 Ingredients for Chocolate Mint Cupcakes
I’ve highlighted a couple of ingredients with some relevant notes. Aside from this, the ingredients needed are pretty basic.
- Butter – We use salted butter for this recipe. Making sure your butter is softened helps it to cream with the sugar much better.
- Milk – Whole milk provides the cupcakes with the moisture they need to be soft and spongey.
- Flour – all-purpose flour is recommended for this recipe.
🧁 Ingredients for Cream Cheese Frosting
We like to keep the frosting a simple vanilla flavor; however, you can also add some peppermint extract for some extra mint flavor. If so, I’d recommend adding 1 teaspoon of mint extract, tasting to see if it’s strong enough, and then adding more if desired.
- Cream cheese – you’ll want to use the block style of cream cheese for this
- Green gel food coloring – The gel food coloring gives the frosting a more vibrant green color than liquid food coloring.
📖 Substitutions
Looking to mix things up? Here are some suggestions that you may find helpful:
- Food Coloring – you can use red food coloring instead of green if you’re looking for cupcakes for the holidays!
- Toppings – we sprinkled mini chocolate chips on top of the homemade chocolate cupcakes (like we did with this cookie dough frosting) but you can switch these out with nuts, shredded coconut, Andes mints, Thin Mint cookies, candies, and more!
- Mint Extract – if you prefer a spearmint flavor, you can use spearmint extract instead of peppermint extract.
👩🏻🍳 How to Make the Mint Cupcakes
The process for the moist chocolate cupcakes is simple, even though they’re made from scratch.
*Be sure to see the recipe card below for the full ingredients list & instructions!*
STEP 1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
STEP 2. Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, on low speed, use an electric mixer to cream your butter and granulated sugar together until smooth (Image 1).
STEP 3. Whisk in the eggs, peppermint extract, and milk until the mixture is homogenous and the egg yolks are fully beaten (Image 2).
STEP 4. Gently whisk the cocoa powder, flour, and baking powder into the wet ingredients (cupcake batter) until fully incorporated (Image 3).
STEP 5. Divide the batter among 12 cupcake liners in a muffin tin. Bake your cupcakes for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in to the center of a cupcake comes out clean (Image 4). Remember that your baking time can differ for different ovens so checking with a toothpick is helpful!
STEP 6. While the cupcakes are in the oven, prepare the frosting by whisking together the cream cheese, powdered sugar, food coloring, and vanilla in a large bowl until it is smooth and creamy. Scrap the bottom and the sides of the bowl to make sure no clumps of cream cheese are stuck.
STEP 7. Allow the cupcakes to fully cool (on a wire rack preferably) and then frost the cupcakes, sprinkle with mini chocolate chips if desired, serve, and enjoy!
💭 Recipe Pro Tips
For your favorite cupcake recipes, it’s best to remember these tips:
- Allow to fully cool. Making sure that you allow the tender chocolate cupcakes to completely cool before frosting is key or the frosting won’t turn out the way that it should.
- Butter. Make sure the butter is softened or at room temperature to make sure that it blends together with the sugar much easier.
📋 Recipe FAQs
These cupcakes are best stored in the fridge covered with plastic wrap for up to 4 days since they’re topped with the cream cheese frosting. If not topped with a frosting that’s perishable, they can be stored on the counter at room temperature for 1-2 days, and then refrigerated.
Do not overmix the batter. If you do, this causes air bubbles to go away and the cupcakes can become dense. When mixing, just mix until the ingredients are combined but then stop.
🍰 More Dessert Recipes You’ll Love
If you love easy dessert recipes, you’re going to love what we’ve been baking and cooking up lately especially these mint chocolate brownies!
Did you make this? I’d be so grateful if you left a “star” rating below to let me know what you thought! Then, the next time you need a quick and easy recipe, come back to Fantabulosity to browse all of my easy recipes!
📖 Recipe
Mint Chocolate Cupcakes
Equipment
- muffin tin or cupcake pan
Ingredients
- ¾ cup salted butter softened
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons peppermint extract
- ⅓ cup whole milk
- ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1½ cup all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powders
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 8 ounces cream cheese block style – softened
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon green gel food coloring
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- mini chocolate chips as a garnish, if desired
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Use an electric hand mixer to cream your butter and granulated sugar together until smooth.
- Whisk in the eggs, peppermint extract, and milk until the mixture is fully mixed together and the eggs yolks are fully beaten.
- Gently whisk the cocoa powder, flour, and baking powder into the cupcake batter, just until fully incorporated. DO not overmix.
- Divide the batter among 12 cupcake liners in a muffin tin. Bake your cupcakes for 20 minutes.
- While the cupcakes are in the oven, prepare the frosting by whisking together the cream cheese, powdered sugar, food coloring, and vanilla in a large bowl until it is smooth and creamy. Scrap the bottom of the bowl to make sure no clumps of cream cheese are stuck.
- Allow the cupcakes to fully cool (on a wire rack preferably) and then frost the cupcakes, serve, and enjoy!
Notes
- Allow to fully cool. Making sure that you allow the chocolate cupcakes to completely cool before frosting is key or the frosting won’t turn out the way that it should.
- Butter. Make sure the butter is softened or at room temperature to make sure that it blends together with the sugar much easier.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered estimates. Actual nutritional content will vary with brands used, measuring methods, portion sizes and more.
Natasha says
Added some peppermint extract and they’re perfect! Thanks for sharing another great dessert recipe.
Cori P says
These cupcakes were a huge hit with my kids and their friends. I didn’t have food coloring and they were still yummy!