Easy Chocolate Orange Cupcakes with Orange Buttercream (Using Orange Extract)

These Terry’s chocolate orange cupcakes with orange buttercream frosting are easy and so delicious! Not a professional baker? No problem, I’m a self-taught home baker too and trust me when I say these cupcakes are a dream to make!

This is one of my favourite flavoured cupcake recipes and they make such an amazing orange chocolate dessert or sweet snack. Chocolate and orange is one of the best ever flavour combinations, and these chocolate orange cupcakes are the perfect treat.

These beautiful cupcakes are so indulgent, bursting with orange flavour and deliciously rich chocolate. The cupcake sponge itself is a moist chocolate orange cake, tasting just like Terry's chocolate orange in cake form.

This is topped with a generous creamy orange buttercream swirl. Stick a piece of Terry’s chocolate orange into each, drizzle some melted chocolate over the top of each cupcake and you’re good to go!

If you've not tried Terry's chocolate orange before, you're in for a treat! It's basically chocolate orange chocolate, shaped like an orange, and they're the perfect decoration for these easy cupcakes.

Jump to:

• ✏️ Making a tasty and easy recipe
• 🥘 Ingredients notes
• 🔪 Equipment notes
• 🍱 Storage
• 💭 Top tips for success
• ♻️ Alternatives and substitutions
• 🧁 Other goodies
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

✏️ Making a tasty and easy recipe

One of the best things about this recipe is that you don’t need to be wasting time grating the zest off of an orange to have a beautifully flavoured cupcake. Using orange extract works super well to give such a delicious flavour, and saves a nice bit of time / grating your fingers.

This recipe uses my favourite easy orange extract buttercream!

One of my favourite things about these chocolate orange cupcakes is that they use vegetable oil (or canola oil) to keep the chocolate crumb super soft and moist.

This recipe also uses hot coffee (or hot water with instant coffee dissolved in it) to activate the cocoa powder, giving it a richer dark chocolate flavour whilst helping to keep the sponges from drying out.

🥘 Ingredients notes

• As with many of my baking recipes, I recommend starting with room temperature ingredients for these chocolate orange cupcakes. This will improve the consistency and ease at which your ingredients will mix together.
• Always sieve your flour, confectioners sugar (also called icing sugar) and cocoa powder. I used to be a bit lazy and skip this part, but it really makes such a difference to get you a lump-free mixture.
• When measuring your ingredients, I always recommend using weights rather than cups where possible for greater accuracy. This is especially important for the amount of flour.

🔪 Equipment notes

• I like to use digital scales for weighing my ingredients as it's easier and more accurate than other scales. I'm a fan of KitchenAid or Salter ones!
• It’s good to use measuring spoons for your teaspoon and tablespoon amounts and making sure the scoops filled with your ingredients are levelled before adding them to your mix.
• If you're planning to use a stand mixer, I would recommend using the paddle attachment to make your cupcake batter and / or buttercream frosting.
• When using a stand mixer, I usually use a low speed for this cake batter as it's very liquid. For the buttercream frosting, I use a medium speed.
• For both your cupcake batter and buttercream frosting, I'd recommend that you scrape down the sides of the stand mixer bowl and the bottom of the bowl to ensure a more even mix.

🍱 Storage

Once decorated and finished, it's best to place cupcakes into an airtight container. These chocolate orange cupcakes should keep for several days in storage at room temperature.

If you want to freeze your cupcakes, you can wrap the unfrosted chocolate orange cupcakes in plastic wrap / cling film and freeze them.

Your buttercream frosting can also be frozen in an airtight container.

Both should keep for 1-2months in the freezer. Defrost and use as normal per recipe. The buttercream may need to be beaten again to whip up to nice and fluffy before use.

💭 Top tips for success

Cupcake making tips:

• I find that the best way to mix your ingredients is to slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. This will help to reduce the lumps in your mixture and means you'll be less likely to overbeat your cupcake batter.
• When pouring your cupcake batter into the cupcake liners in the muffin tin (I quite like the Wilton muffin pans!) you only need to fill each of your cupcake cases to roughly ⅔ full. If you fill it more than this, you might have your cupcakes looking a bit more like muffins as they may spill over!
• When making cupcakes with raising agents (i.e. using self-raising flour, baking powder, baking soda, etc.) such as these chocolate orange cupcakes, try to not over-mix your cake batter. The texture of your cake will be dense rather than a light and airy sponge.
• Don’t open the oven mid-bake. You’ll have probably heard this advice before, but it’s such an important factor that it bears repeating. I’ve been there before and nobody likes a cake with a sinkhole!
• Once your cupcakes have baked, it's best to remove them from the muffin tin and move them to a wire rack to cool. Using a cooling rack prevents moisture from gathering on the outside of your cupcake cases, which I've found can cause them to peel away from the cupcakes as they cool.

Buttercream tips:

• For a gorgeously creamy buttercream frosting, start by beating your butter until it’s light and fluffy. It could just be me, but this always seems to take longer than I think. It should be several minutes of beating the butter if using a stand/electric mixer. This will go a long way in giving you creamy and light frosting.
• When making the orange buttercream, I like to add a few drops of orange coloring to really make them stand out. This is completely optional, but I think it adds an extra touch. I always recommend using food colouring gel instead of the liquid types, as this won’t affect the consistency of your icing.
• Another buttercream colouring tip is to only add the food coloring a drop at a time, and to note that your colour will develop and strengthen over time. This means that you should stop adding more colouring a shade lighter than you’d like your final colour to be.

♻️ Alternatives and substitutions

Frosting colouring:

Don’t have orange food colouring? Go back to your primary school colour wheel and mix a few drops of red and yellow food colouring together. That’s what I did for the batch in the photos here!

Can you substitute orange extract?

Yes, you can substitute every 1 teaspoon of orange extract for 2 teaspoon of orange zest.

For these easy chocolate orange cupcakes, I like how simple it is to use these orange extract, but they'd definitely taste even more citrussy substituting this for zest instead.

If you'd like to add more orange flavor to your chocolate orange cupcakes, you can also swap 1 tablespoon of milk in the orange buttercream frosting for 1 tablespoon of fresh orange juice.

Cupcake decorating ideas:

In the photos here I’ve used a Wilton 1M piping tip and piping bag to pipe a large swirl of orange buttercream over the top of my cupcake. I’ve then added half of a Terry’s chocolate orange slice into the side and drizzled melted milk chocolate over the top.

Instead of this, you can practise your piping skills and create fun designs such as buttercream roses or cover the top of your cupcake in buttercream stars to give a sort of flower effect.

Alternatively, you can use a large round tip to pipe a nice big swirl for a big whip effect.

This 3-piece set from Wilton has the ones I use most often for my cupcakes. For more cupcake buttercream piping ideas, check out this great tutorial by Cupcake Jemma.

Or, if you don't have a piping bag / pastry bag, you can use a plastic sandwich or freezer bag with the corner cut off to pipe a big round buttercream swirl on top of your cupcakes. I usually find this looks like a big ice-cream top! Alternatively, you can go back to basics and use a spatula, spoon or knife to spread a generous portion of frosting on your cupcakes.

Instead of the chocolate drizzle and chocolate orange piece, you can top your orange buttercream with sprinkles, orange zest, small pieces of orange peel (candied or fresh), orange slices or grated chocolate. So many fun decorating ideas for one cupcake!

Other tasty alternative ideas:

These cupcakes would be even more decadent with the addition of chocolate chips! You can even make them double or triple chocolate chip chocolate orange cupcakes by using a mixture of milk chocolate, dark chocolate and / or white chocolate.

🧁 Other goodies

If you're a big Terry's chocolate orange fan, then why not check out my recipe for a white chocolate orange no-bake cheesecake? I love topping it with slices of limited edition Terry's white chocolate orange when I can.

Or try this dark chocolate orange cheesecake - so delicious and creamy!

Love chocolate and orange? Check out this collection of easy chocolate orange desserts for more ideas!

If you’re looking for more tasty chocolate cake recipes, check out my recipe for a delicious Oreo drip cake. It's perfect for your next big celebration or as an impressive birthday cake!

If you love chocolate cupcakes, give these chocolate cupcakes with pink buttercream a try!

Looking forward to some new recipes? Check out my Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest pages for a few sneak peeks and some sweet inspiration!

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📖 Recipe