If you enjoyed last week's vegan Devil's food chocolate cake recipe I think you're going to love these spooky vegan Halloween cupcakes.
These vegan chocolate cupcakes are made using Dutch-processed cocoa powder for a deep chocolate flavor and dark color (fitting if you're planning on making these for the spooky season!). The dark chocolate flavor contrasts so well with the tart blackberry filling.
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📖 Recipe Overview
- Intensely chocolatey
- Tender and moist
- Easy to make
- Eggless and dairy-free
- Perfect for spooky season
If you love spooky treats, try my vegan recipes for devil's food cake and spiderweb cake, or traditional Irish barmbrack next.
🧾 Ingredients Needed
Here's everything you need to make these spooky cupcakes from scratch:
Ingredient Notes
- Dutch-processed cocoa powder: This is cocoa powder that has been alkalized and is not to be confused with regular cocoa powder or raw cacao powder. Dutch-process cocoa powder is made with cocoa beans that have been washed in an alkaline solution of potassium carbonate. Sallys Baking Addiction has written an entire post about their differences if you'd like to learn more about the science behind it. Raw cacao powder or regular cocoa powder will yield different results in this recipe.
- Baking soda: This is the leavening agent for these vegan cupcakes. Usually, baking soda needs an acidic ingredient to activate it. This is where the muscovado sugar and vegan buttermilk come in.
- Coffee: Coffee intensifies that chocolate flavor, even more, I pretty much always use it when baking with chocolate.
- Soya milk: Mixed together with apple cider vinegar, this creates your vegan buttermilk substitute.
- Caster sugar and muscovado sugar: Muscovado sugar brings acidity to this recipe which reacts with the baking soda.
- Apple puree: Or unsweetened apple sauce
- Olive oil: I love using olive oil in vegan chocolate cupcakes but you can also use an alternative neutral-tasting oil such as rapeseed or sunflower.
- Blackberries: You can go with fresh or frozen, depending on what's available to you. A great way to pick up on what's left of them this season!
- Vanilla extract: This acts as a flavor enhancer and sweetness enhancer.
You'll also need vegan block butter, aquafaba for the vegan Swiss meringue buttercream frosting.
🥣 How To Make Halloween Cupcakes
Find the complete list of ingredients, quantities, and instructions in the recipe card at the end of this post.
Step 1: Decorative Chocolate Skulls
If you're topping the cupcakes with chocolate skulls, prep these first. Melt the chocolate over a double boiler (bain-marie). Pour the chocolate into the skull molds and refrigerate until set - you may need to repeat this process several times depending on the number of skull molds you have to hand.
Step 2: Chocolate Cupcakes
To make the vegan "buttermilk" add the soya milk and apple cider vinegar to a small bowl, stir, and allow to sit for 10 minutes.
Add the coffee, apple puree, olive oil, and vanilla extract to the vegan buttermilk mixture, stir, and set aside. Add the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, caster sugar, and muscovado sugar to a separate bowl and whisk to make sure everything is evenly mixed.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk together until combined - do not over-mix. Distribute the batter amongst the cupcake liners and bake for 22-25 minutes. Check they are done by piercing them with a toothpick or a knife, the knife should come out clean.
Step 3: Blackberry Coulis Filling
Add the blackberries, caster sugar, and water to a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook for 12 minutes, stirring often until the mixture is thick. Cool to room temperature and then store in the fridge until ready to use. Reserve 2 tablespoons of the coulis for making the frosting.
Use a cupcake corer (or apple corer) to cut out centers in the cooled cupcakes, reserve the pieces that you remove.
Fill each cupcake with blackberry coulis and place the reserved cuts back on top of each one (if you weren't already tempted to eat them as is that is!)
Step 4: Frost the Cupcakes
Make a batch of vegan Swiss meringue buttercream. Next, split the buttercream into 2 parts. Add 2 tbsp of the cooled blackberry coulis to one half and blend until combined. Add the 4 tbsp of cocoa powder to the other half and mix until combined as well. You can also go entirely with one flavor or the other depending on your preference.
Transfer both buttercreams to a piping bag fitted with an open star nozzle. Alternate between blackberry and chocolate buttercream when filling the bag to give a swirl effect. Pipe the buttercream on top of each cupcake, top with chocolate skulls and fresh blackberries.
💀 Variations
- Vegan chocolate cupcakes: Keep these cupcakes plain and simple by skipping the blackberry coulis. You can fill them with some vegan chocolate ganache to make triple chocolate cupcakes!
- Chocolate raspberry cupcakes: Swap out the blackberries for raspberries or other berries of your choice.
💬 FAQs
These cupcakes are best served at room temperature. If you're keeping them for more than a couple of days, refrigerate them in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
I recommend taking them out of the fridge for at least 2-3 hours to bring them to room temperature before serving. Especially if you’re topping them with vegan buttercream which stiffens up when chilled.
I use this silicone skull mold, and these cupcake liners.
🧁 More Vegan Cupcakes
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Description
Ingredients
Cupcakes
- 1 cup (236.59 ml) soy milk
- 1 tablespoon (1 tablespoon) apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon (1 tablespoon) instant coffee granules, mixed with 2 tbsp boiling water
- ⅓ cup (41 g) apple puree
- ⅓ cup (78 ml) olive oil
- 1 teaspoon (1 teaspoon) vanilla extract
- 1 cup (125 g) plain flour
- ½ cup (43 g) Dutch processed cocoa powder
- ¾ teaspoon (¾ teaspoon) baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon (¼ teaspoon) sea salt
- ¾ cup (150 g) caster sugar, (superfine)
- ¼ cup (55 g) light muscovado sugar
Filling
- 12.3 oz (350 g) blackberries
- ¼ cup (50 g) caster sugar
- ¼ cup (60 ml) water
Frosting
- 1 batch vegan Swiss meringue buttercream
- 4 tablespoons (20 g) Dutch processed cocoa powder
Garnish
- 10.6 oz (300 g) dark chocolate
- ½ cup (72 g) fresh blackberries
Instructions
Ahead of time
- If you're topping the cupcakes with chocolate skulls, prep these first. Melt the chocolate over a double boiler (bain-marie). Pour the chocolate into the skull molds and refrigerate until set - you may need to repeat this process several times depending on the number of skull molds you have to hand.
Cupcakes
- Preheat your oven to 180°C (356°F). Line a 12-hole cupcake tin with 12 cupcake liners.
- To make the vegan "buttermilk" add the soy milk and apple cider vinegar to a small bowl, stir and allow to sit for 10 minutes.
- Add the coffee, apple puree, olive oil, and vanilla extract to the vegan buttermilk mixture, stir and set aside. Add the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, caster sugar, and muscovado sugar to a separate bowl and whisk to make sure everything is evenly mixed. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk together until combined - do not over-mix.
- Distribute the batter amongst the cupcake liners and bake for 22-25 minutes. Check they are done by piercing them with a toothpick or a knife, the knife should come out clean.
- Allow the cupcakes to cool for about 10 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack to cool further for 30-40 minutes.
Blackberry coulis
- Add the blackberries, caster sugar, and water to a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook for 12 minutes, stirring often until the mixture is thick. Cool to room temperature and then store in the fridge until ready to use. Reserve 2 tablespoons of the coulis for making the frosting.
- Use a cupcake corer (or apple corer) to cut out centers in the cooled cupcakes, reserve the pieces that you remove. Fill each cupcake with blackberry coulis and place the reserved cuts back on top of each one.
Frosting
- Make a batch of vegan Swiss meringue buttercream.
- Split the buttercream into 2 parts. Add 2 tbsp of the cooled blackberry coulis to one half and blend until combined. Add the 4 tbsp of cocoa powder to the other half and blend until combined as well.
- Transfer the buttercreams to a piping bag fitted with an open star nozzle. Alternate between blackberry and chocolate buttercream when filling the bag to give a swirl effect.
- Pipe the buttercream on top of each cupcake, top with chocolate skulls and fresh blackberries.
Storage
- These cupcakes are best served at room temperature. If you're keeping them for more than a couple of days, refrigerate them in an airtight container for up to 5 days. I recommend taking them out of the fridge for at least 2-3 hours to bring them to room temperature before serving. Especially if you’re topping them with vegan buttercream which stiffens up when chilled.
Notes
- Nutritional information is based on filled cupcakes without frosting.
Nutrition
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