My sweet tooth has been a little out of control lately. Since James is a chocolate fan, I decided to make chocolate cupcakes with a chocolate buttercream frosting. If you prefer vanilla, you may like our small batch vanilla cupcake recipe.
As a family of two, large batches of baked goods can be problematic. We either eat all of the treats (bad for the waistline) or don’t eat all of the treats (waste of food and money). So, this recipe is perfect for us. It makes four cupcakes that cost about $0.37 a piece (see below for a cost analysis).

Cost Analysis:

Picture Tutorial:
For the cake:
For the frosting:

Recipe:
Small batch chocolate cupcakes
These dark chocolate cupcakes with thick chocolate buttercream frosting are rich and delicious. The recipe only makes four, so you could eat the whole batch…
Ingredients
- For the cake:
- 6 tablespoons flour
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
- 2 tablespoons softened butter
- 3 tablespoons water
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 large egg (at room temperature) For the frosting:
- 2 tablespoons softened butter
- 7 tablespoons powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
- 1/2 tablespoon milk
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
For the cake:- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Sift together flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder
- Beat softened butter into the mixture of dry ingredients.
- Beat in water and vanilla for 2 minutes. If using a hand mixer, set it to medium speed.
- Beat in egg for an additional 2 minutes.
- Line a muffin tin with paper liners (or grease) and pour batter into cups. Fill the cups 1/2 to 2/3 of the way full. If you would like over-sized cupcakes, the batter should make 4 cupcakes. Otherwise, it will make 5-6 regular-sized cupcakes. Note: filling beyond 1/2 of the way full may cause your cupcakes to form a muffin-like top. If you prefer cupcakes without this, only fill 1/2 of the way full!
- Bake for 15-18 minutes. Check with a toothpick. It should come out relatively clean when the cupcakes are done.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool in the muffin tin for 1 minute. Remove cakes from muffin tin and allow them to cool completely before frosting.
- Combine softened butter, powdered sugar, cocoa powder, milk and vanilla in a medium-sized bowl and mix with a mixer. After a minute or two, it should form a thick buttercream. If it is too thick, add a little bit of extra milk and mix until smooth.
- Frost cooled cupcakes.
- Enjoy!
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For the frosting:
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These look fantastic and I love the whole idea of small batch recipes. Thanks for sharing, I will have to try these! 🙂
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Great! You’ll have to let me know how they turn out!😊
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Thank you so much for the post! The fact that the whole batch won’t be finished always discourages me from baking cupcakes!
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I am so glad that you liked the post! Thank you for reading. 🙂
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you’re an angel – I cook for just me, I don’t even own scales, but after reading this I can’t even make an excuse as it’s all in cups / spoons and feeds just 4! Looks like I know what I’m doing next week….!
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🙂 I love small batch recipes, too. I do freeze some baked goods (like cookies) if I make too many, but I prefer just making a small amount.
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