Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

4.37 from 11 votes

These easy chocolate orange cupcakes are made of a moist chocolate orange sponge, topped with a generous orange buttercream swirl and a piece of Terry's chocolate orange slice to decorate.

Prep Time30

Cook Time15

Total Time45

Course: Dessert, Snack

Cuisine: Fusion

Diet: Vegetarian

Servings: cupcakes

Calories: 447kcal

Author: Kachina

Equipment

Ingredients

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes:

125 ml vegetable oil (or sunflower or canola oil)
2 eggs
325 g caster sugar (golden or white)
200 ml milk (whole or semi-skimmed)
1 teaspoon orange extract
85 g cocoa powder
200 g plain / all-purpose flour (see notes for self-raising flour swap)
3 ½ teaspoon baking powder
125 ml hot coffee (or 2 teaspoon instant coffee dissolved in 125ml hot water)

Orange Buttercream:

140 g unsalted butter (room temp.)
280 g icing sugar (confectioners sugar)
1 tablespoon milk (optional depending on consistency)
1 teaspoon orange extract
A few drops orange food colouring (optional)

Decorations:

7 slices Terry’s chocolate orange (optional, half a slice per cupcake)
75 g milk chocolate (optional, melted to drizzle)

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes:

Pre-heat oven: 190°C / 170°C (fan) / Gas Mark 5 / 375°F
In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs, oil, sugar, milk and orange extract together until fully combined.
In a separate bowl, sieve in the cocoa powder, flour and baking powder and whisk them together.
Gradually pour the wet ingredients into the dry, stirring together as you pour until just combined. There may be a few small lumps left, but that’s ok.
Gradually add the hot coffee to the mixture, stirring as you pour until just combined. The sponge mix will be quite liquid.
Divide the mixture evenly between the cupcake cases in the muffin tin and bake for 15-20mins until risen and springy to the touch. Allow the cupcakes to cool on a wire rack while you make the buttercream.

Orange Buttercream:

Beat the butter (either by hand, using an electric mixer or stand mixer) until pale, light and fluffy. This could take several minutes.
Sieve half of the icing sugar into the butter and beat until combined, then repeat this with the remaining half of icing sugar.
Add in the milk, orange extract and a few drops of orange food colouring (optional), mixing until smooth.

Assembly and Decoration:

Once your cupcakes have fully cooled, add your buttercream to a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle and pipe large swirls onto each cupcake.
If using, break the Terry’s chocolate orange slices in half before placing one half into the side of the buttercream swirl for each cupcake.
If using a chocolate drizzle to decorate, melt your chocolate in the microwave (30 secs at a time) and add this to a piping bag with a small round nozzle (or a food bag and cut off the bottom corner). Drizzle this over your cupcakes then enjoy!

Notes

You can swap the plain / all-purpose flour in this recipe for the same amount of self-raising flour and reduce the baking powder by 2 tsp. Scale this up as needed for a larger batch size.

Nutrition