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These Brownie Cupcakes are completely from scratch with a delicious chocolate frosting. You can use any flavor frosting on these but the fact they’re homemade brownies in cupcake form – genius!
Best Brownie Cupcakes From Scratch
Making these Brownie Cupcakes will give you a rich, chocolatey, and fudgy brownie in cupcake form, which makes them even more fun. This recipe is very similar to my regular brownie recipe, but a bit easier.
The greatest thing is that brownies go with so many flavors, therefore when it comes to topping the cupcakes–your favorite frosting is sure to go great with the brownie taste! At the end, you’ll be left with 11 cupcakes…seems like just enough to try out multiple new frostings!
Ingredients Needed
- Vegetable Oil – I go back and forth between using melted butter and oil in brownies. For the cupcakes, I find oil is best.
- Unsweetened Cocoa Powder: Gives that chocolate flavor – you can use regular cocoa powder or Dutch process cocoa.
- Baking Powder: I find that adding a bit of baking powder makes these more like cupcakes – that way they’ll rise a bit.
- All-Purpose Flour – be sure to measure your flour correctly.
How to make Brownie Cupcakes
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line cupcake pan with liners.
- Stir together oil, sugar, and cocoa. Stir in eggs, vanilla extract, baking soda, and salt. Carefully stir in flour.
- Fill liners about ⅔ full (about 3 tablespoons of batter each).
- Bake for 20-30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean from right along the edge of the liner. Cool completely before frosting.
- Store in refrigerator loosely covered, serve at room temperature.
Expert Tips
- Be careful not to over bake the cupcakes – a toothpick right on the edge of the liner will come out with a few crumbs.
- If you don’t want brownie cupcakes, you can make traditional brownies in a 9×9 pan and then frost them.
- If you decide to make Mint Chip Frosting, be sure that you are using peppermint extract and not mint extract. Mint Extract gives a different taste that isn’t right for this frosting.
FAQs
Baking brownies at 350° will take around 20-30 minutes. In that window, do the toothpick trick, where you’ll know it’s done when a toothpick comes out clean from right along the edge of the liner.
You can! In an airtight container for up to two months.
Brownie Cupcakes from Scratch Recipe
Ingredients
Cupcakes:
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- ½ cup (40g) unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup + 2 tablespoons (109g) all-purpose flour
Frosting:
- Mint Chip Frosting (see notes)
- Ganache Frosting
- Vanilla Buttercream
- Chocolate Buttercream
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line cupcake pan with liners.
- Stir together oil, sugar, and cocoa. Stir in eggs, vanilla extract, baking powder, and salt. Carefully stir in flour.
- Fill liners about ⅔ full (about 3 tablespoons of batter each).
- Bake for 20-30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean from right along the edge of the liner. Cool completely before frosting.
- Store in refrigerator loosely covered, serve at room temperature.
Recipe Video
Recipe Notes
- Mint Chip Frosting: beat 1/2 cup unsalted butter and pinch of salt until smooth. Slowly mix in 4 cups (452g) powdered sugar until crumbly. Add 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, and 2 tablespoons of heavy cream. Beat until smooth, adding more cream as needed to get the consistency desired. Add a few drops of green food coloring and mix in, if desired. Stir in 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips.
- You can frost these with any frosting you like.
- Be careful not to over bake the cupcakes – a toothpick right on the edge of the liner will come out with a few crumbs.
- Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days or freeze cupcakes for up to 2 months.
Can these be made in a bigger 6 jumbo muffin tin?
Yes – it will affect baking time (it’ll be longer)
Is it baking powder or baking soda?? Ingredients and directions are not clear on which one to use.
baking powder thank you for catching that – fixed
Dorothy, you poor thing!! Making a leprechaun trap was never any fun, even when I was back in elementary school and made it from a cardboard box (or shoe box, I can’t remember). I think we only did them in first grade; after that, we mainly celebrated with green cookies and cupcakes while the teachers tried to make sure nobody pinched each other. (Good luck on that one.) If you kept the leprechaun trap in the garage, would Jordan finally be able to sleep like normal??
I’m SO right there with you on brownies — probably my favorite dessert ever! You’re so sweet to make a mint-flavored frosting in honor of Jordan too. You definitely earned the “Best Mom” award for this recipe! 🙂 I bet you could add an Oreo crust to a brownie cupcake and combine your two favorites into the best treat ever. But then again, knowing you and how much you think/bake, you’ve probably done that already!
LOL! Well, those little brownie bites from Saturday…they’re coming tomorrow! 🙂 Thanks Amy!
Really?? Too funny — I’m planning on posting my raspberry brownies tomorrow too! (Well, technically much, much later today, if you look at the time stamp… 😉 ) Good thing there’s never such a thing as too much chocolate or brownies!!
NEVER! 🙂
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