Moist, full of chocolate chips and absolutely delicious, these Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes are a fun and classic cupcake combination that taste like your favorite ice cream flavor!
Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a 12-cup cupcake pan with liners.
In a large bowl, stir together flour, cocoa powder, sugar, espresso powder (if using), baking powder and salt.
In another bowl, mix together oil, egg, vanilla extract, peppermint extract and buttermilk until combined.
Add the flour mixture to the wet mix in 2 batches, mixing just until smooth after each batch. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Slowly add in the boiling water whisk until combined.
Add the chocolate chips and fold in until incorporated.
Pour the batter into the cupcake liners, filling each cup about 2/3 full.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool cupcakes completely to room temperature.
Frosting:
In a large bowl, using a hand mixer, beat the butter on medium-high speed until smooth and creamy.
Reduce the mixing speed and add the powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, beating until smooth and fluffy after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as required.
Add the heavy cream, vanilla extract and mint extract and beat together just until combined.
Add the green food coloring, 1 drop at a time and beat until fully incorporated.
Add more drops as desired until you get a good mint green color.
Pipe frosting onto the cooled cupcakes and decorate with chocolate sprinkles or chocolate chips.
Notes
I use espresso powder in this recipe. You could also use instant coffee. It is completely optional but it helps bring out the chocolate flavor in cakes.
Mint extract is used in both the cupcakes and frosting, if you want to reduce the mint flavor you can leave it out of the cupcakes (but really, why would you want to?)
To frost these, I used a 1M wilton piping tip.
I like to use gel food coloring when I can, but you can use liquid food coloring for the frosting on these as well. Sometimes too much liquid food coloring can mess up the texture of frosting.
Any flavor of chocolate chips can be used for this recipe, I used semi-sweet.
I like to let my cupcakes cool in the baking pan for about 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
I know lots of folks like to skip the buttermilk when they see it in recipes. I get it. But I wouldn't use real buttermilk if I didn't think it really added to the recipe. Buttermilk is rich in fat and will add so much moistness to this recipe. So just adding lemon or vinegar to milk isn't going to work here.