Are you ready to spice up your life?! (Cue Spice Girls song!) Get ready for these dark chocolate chili cupcakes to add some spooky fun to your Halloween or Día de los Muertos celebrations. A moist dark chocolate cupcake with a hit of chili powder and cayenne pepper. Topped off with a whipped spicy chocolate ganache frosting. These aren’t your average chocolate cupcake! Take a bite, if you dare!
How spicy are these cupcakes??
Ok, ok I may be joking above about the intensity of these cupcakes but don’t worry, you won’t be reaching for the water to cool your mouth off! I love these cupcake because the chili flavor definitely comes through in the taste and is a great pairing with the dark chocolate. BUT the spice level is very mild. Some would say not spicy at all. But I’ll let you decide for yourself.
There is no burning sensation like you’d typically get when biting into a hot pepper. Flavor without the fire, if you will.
How to make whipped ganache frosting
We’re going to start off by making our frosting first. Ganache can take a few hours to set up so we need to get a head start on this before making the cupcakes.
Since chocolate is (obviously) the key ingredient let’s not skimp on quality here. Go for a nice, high quality chocolate such as Ghirardelli, Valrhona, Guittard or similar. Look for an option with minimal ingredients listed. Chocolate chips are not ideal since many of them have added ingredients that help them retain their shape when heated. Save those for another recipe.
We’ll start off by scalding the heavy cream. Bringing it to a gentle simmer but not allowing it to boil. Pour the hot cream on top of the chopped chocolate and allow to sit for a few minutes to begin melting. After 3-5 minutes add in cinnamon and cayenne pepper and stir the mixture until well combined. This can take a few minutes to fully incorporate. The ganache will be very liquid at this point. Let it sit at room temperature for a few hours to firm up before whipping and turning it into a light and fluffy frosting.
Super easy dark chocolate chili cupcakes!
This cupcake recipe is super straight forward and very easy to execute! Basically mix together your dry ingredients. Whisk together almost all of the wet ingredients, excluding the milk. Add wet to dry. Then add in the milk. Simple right?!
We don’t even need to bust out a stand mixer. A good whisk is all you need!
As with a lot of chocolate cake recipes, the batter is quite thin compared to other types of cakes. This is totally normal. With the thin consistency, I find it easier to put the batter into a large measuring cup and pour it into each liner. You could also use a large cookie scoop to dollop the batter into the muffin cups.
Only fill the liners halfway full to allow for plenty of room to rise. The cupcakes will bake up mostly flat, with no large dome top. When finished they should be light and springy. They should bounce back when lightly touched. Et voilá! Super easy dark chocolate chili cupcakes!
Dark Chocolate Chili Cupcakes with Whipped Spicy Ganache Frosting
- Prep Time: 25 min
- Cook Time: 18 min
- Total Time: 1 hour 10 min (+ time for ganache to set up)
- Yield: 12–14 cupcakes 1x
Description
Spice up your life with these devilishly delicious dark chocolate chili cupcakes. Moist dark chocolate cupcakes with a hit of chili powder and cayenne pepper. Topped off with a whipped spicy chocolate ganache frosting. These aren’t your average chocolate cupcakes!
Ingredients
Spicy Ganache Frosting
- 1/2 cup (4 oz) heavy cream
- 8 oz chocolate, chopped (bitter or semi-sweet)
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp ground cayenne pepper
Cupcakes
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate cocoa powder*
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1/4 tsp ground cayenne pepper
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup whole milk
Instructions
Spicy Ganache Frosting
- Heat heavy cream in a saucepan over medium heat, until scalding. Place chopped chocolate in a large heatproof glass bowl and pour hot cream on top. Let sit for a few minutes to allow the chocolate to begin melting.
- After a few minutes add in the cinnamon and cayenne pepper and stir until smooth and everything is well incorporated.
- Let sit at room temperature for a few hours to firm up. Once firm, use a hand mixer to whip the ganache until fluffy.
Cupcakes
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 12 cup standard size muffin pans with paper liners. Line a second pan with two paper liners. Set aside.
- In a large bowl whisk together dry ingredients, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, cinnamon, chili powder, and cayenne pepper.
- In a separate medium size bowl, whisk eggs and sugar together until combined. Mix in vanilla and vegetable oil. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Next, add in the whole milk until incorporated. Batter will be thin.
- Fill the prepared cupcake liners 1/2 full with batter. Bake for 18-22 minutes, or until the cakes are spongy and spring back when lightly touched and a toothpick comes out clean from the center. (Cupcakes will bake up relatively flat).
- Allow to cool completely before frosting. Once cool, decoratively pipe frosting onto cupcakes, or use an offset spatula to spread on frosting. (If desired, place sprinkles on top of cupcakes.)
Notes
- Frosting recipe makes enough to lightly frost each cupcake. If you like a lot of frosting, or piping large frosting spirals, 1.5x or 2x the recipe quantities for a larger batch of frosting.
- Cocoa powder: I like using Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa, which you can find online or in your grocery store in the baking aisle. If you can’t find this special dark cocoa variety, use unsweetened natural cocoa powder instead.
- To pipe the frosting I used an Ateco #846 closed star piping tip
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