This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy.
These Eggless Chocolate Cupcakes are moist, decadent, ultra-flavorful and easy. I baked a batch for a family dinner this past Sunday and they were a big hit with my sisters and all the kiddos. I recreated them today with some chocolate decorating ideas to impress your sweetheart :).
The frosting recipe makes enough to cover 24 cupcakes or 1 cake. It’s a good idea to go ahead and double the cupcakes recipe and just make 24 (you won’t regret making extra).
Since these are egg-free chocolate cupcakes, they also happen to be vegan. You won’t miss the eggs!
The cupcakes were adapted from Simply Recipes. The frosting is from the prague chocolate cake.
Ingredients for Eggless Chocolate Cupcakes:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour *measured correctly
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup warm coffee (freshly brewed, instant coffee in 1 cup water or 3 espresso shots in enough water to equal 1 cup)
1 Tbsp white vinegar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup olive oil (not extra virgin
Prague Chocolate frosting (frosts 24 Chocolate Cupcakes or 1 cake):
2 sticks of Butter or 1 cup (must be at room temperature)
1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
3 Egg yolks
¼ cup Water
1/3 cup chocolate chips
Making the Chocolate Cupcakes:
1. Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners. Brew your coffee.
2. In a large bowl whisk together 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/4 cup cocoa powder, 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp salt until there are no more cocoa lumps (a few tiny lumps are ok; it also helps to sift the cocoa before using it).
3. In a separate bowl, mix together 1 cup coffee, 1 Tbsp vinegar, 2 tsp vanilla extract and 1/3 cup olive oil
4. Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just until they come together. Your batter will still be lumpy.
5. Use an ice cream scoop to pour batter into your lined cupcake pan; They should be about 2/3 full. Bake 18-20 minutes on the center rack or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in the pan 5 minutes and remove to cool on a rack. You can even sprinkle these with powdered sugar once they cool or use the decadent Prague frosting (my favorite).
Making the Chocolate Prague Frosting:
1. In a small sauce pan, whisk together 3 reserved egg yolks, ¼ cup water, and 1/3 cup condensed milk.
2. Start heating the pan over low heat and gradually increase the heat until it’s just letting off steam but not boiling. Whisk constantly until your mixture is the consistency of raw condensed milk. Remove the mixture form heat and immediately stir in 2oz chocolate, whisking until smooth. Let your mixture cool off to room temperature (I transferred it to another bowl to cool faster).
3. In a separate bowl, using electric hand mixer, beat butter on high speed for 5 minutes. Once chocolate is cooled to room temp, add it to the butter and beat together for an extra 3 minutes.
4. Pipe the frosting onto your cupcakes with whatever frosting tip your heart desires. I used a large star tip working in a circular motion; starting at the center and staying close to the cupcake.
Decorating the top with Chocolate: Click here for the updated tutorial .
If using decorative chocolate, refrigerate cupcakes until ready to serve or this frosting gets a little soft to hold chocolate upright.
Eggless Chocolate Cupcakes with Prague Frosting

Ingredients
Ingredients for 12 cupcakes:
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup warm coffee
- 1 Tbsp white distilled vinegar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup olive oil, not extra virgin
Prague Chocolate frosting (frosts 24 cupcakes or 1 cake):
- 2 sticks of Butter or 1 cup, must be at room temperature
- 1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
- 3 Egg yolks
- ¼ cup Water
- 1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners. Brew your coffee.
- In a large bowl whisk together 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/4 cup cocoa powder, 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp salt.
- In a separate bowl, mix together 1 cup coffee, 1 Tbsp vinegar, 2 tsp vanilla extract and 1/3 cup olive oil.
- Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just until they come together.
- Use an ice cream scoop to pour batter into your lined cupcake pan; They should be about 2/3 full. Bake 18-20 minutes on the center rack or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in the pan 5 minutes and remove to cool on a rack.
Making the Chocolate Prague Frosting:
- In a small sauce pan, whisk together 3 reserved egg yolks, ¼ cup water, and 1/3 cup condensed milk.
- Start heating the pan over low heat and gradually increase the heat until it’s just letting off steam but not boiling. Whisk constantly until your mixture is the consistency of raw condensed milk. Remove the mixture form heat and immediately stir in 2 oz chocolate, whisking until smooth. Let your mixture cool off to room temperature.
- In a separate bowl, beat butter on high speed for 5 minutes. Once chocolate is cooled to room temp, add it to the butter and beat together for an extra 3 minutes.
- Pipe the frosting onto your cupcakes with whatever frosting tip your heart desires.
Hi!
I hate to ask because I really do hate making substitutions, I know that a recipe won’t turn the way it was intended if I do that, BUT I don’t have a light olive oil, just extea virgin. Can I use a vegetable oil instead. Please let me know.
Extra virgin might be too strong in flavor for these. I think a vegetable oil would be a good substitution. Do you have canola?
Sadly, I don’t. I do gave vegetable oil because I use it in several other recipes. I plan to try your vanilla cupcakes too, can I use vegetable oil there as well or does using canola make a big difference?
Vegetable oil will work fine :). Canola oil is just my preference. Let me know how the recipe works and maybe share a picture.
I made these cupcakes last week with the perfect cupcake frosting and they were delicious. Very moist and yummy! I am planning to make the perfect vanilla cupcakes soon. Thanks for the recipe!
Mmmm one of my favorites! I’m so glad you enjoyed them 🙂
Hi Natasha,
Just curious… can you use dutch-processed cocoa on this recipe? looks divine, btw, and I really want to give it a try! thanks!
Yes that should work fine. They will probably be darker and more chocolatey; but that’s a good thing! 🙂
I made these a couple of weeks ago for my brother’s birthday party, and they were seriously so delicious. Like, probably the most delicious and moist cupcakes i’ve ever made/tasted. 10/10 would eat every day if i could.
Every day, huh? Now that is a great cupcake! lol. Thanks so much for sharing your awesome review and happy belated birthday to your brother! You’re such a nice sister to make him the most delicious and moist cupcakes you’ve ever tasted 😉 Be sure to check out the dark chocolate cupcakes. Those are equally amazing 🙂
Do you need any eggs for the batter?
These are my only eggless cupcakes 🙂 No eggs needed. If you prefer to use eggs, I do have another chocolate cupcake recipe that I just posted: https://natashaskitchen.com/2014/05/03/dark-chocolate-cupcakes-with-white-chocolate-frosting/
I did these cupcakes for my son’s first birthday party. They were moist and delicious. I made my own frosting. Will do again soon. Thanks!
Thank you for the great review Irina and you are welcome :).
Hi
Thanks for this great recipe. I skipped the topping.
The cup cake was nice, but a bit to delicate. As in you remove the cup cake paper and they tend to crumble. So did I add something more or less.. Just wondering.
I tried the plain vanilla recipe from ur blog and that was a great hit..
Thanks again.. And good day from Singapore.
Did you use any different ingredients than the ones I have listed? These seemed pretty rich and more moist/dense than delicate even after removing the wrapper. I’m so glad you liked the vanilla cupcakes. Thanks for your feedback 🙂
I made these and they had too much of an olive oil taste to them:/ and the frosting was too much butter. Maybe I just suck at baking or goin by instructions. I will give them another try maybe that day wasn’t my good day
What kind of olive oil did you use? I use extra LIGHT olive oil (not extra virgin). Extra light is from Costco and it has a high smoke point and no olive oil flavor. It’s wonderful. Don’t give up! It was likely the olive oil you used.
The chocolate cupcakes were really moist and yummy! The frosting was excellent! Love the recipe! So happy I found your blog! Made my Valentine’s Day!
Thank you Karen! I’m so glad you loved the cupcakes! 🙂 Happy V-day to you as well!
So, I loved this recipe! I made it for my nephews birthday party but I made cake pops with it instead of cupcakes. I just doubled the cupcake recipe and used the entire frosting. They turned out wonderful!
P.S. I’m your newest fan. I found out about your site not that long ago and now can’t wait to make like every dessert! Also been craving some kvas 🙂
Welcome to the site Tanya! It’s great to know that they work as cake pops! I hope you find many more favorite recipes 🙂
Hi Natasha,
Made these cupcakes and frosting over the weekend and they were a hit. they were nice and moist. i didnt have white viniger so i used red wine vinegar 🙂 And the frosting was delicious too.
thank you!!
You’re welcome! I’m so glad it was a success for you 🙂
Hi Natasha!
I have tried them and they were fine. But my family preferred my old recipe…
This is a good recipe for eggless cupcakes.
Tnx!
Hi Michal. Very true; I love that there aren’t eggs in it. That makes these perfect for people who have allergies or intolerance to egg. Awesome for first birthday parties! 🙂
These cupcakes are amazing!! It took 1 day for 24 to be gone. This recipe is definitely a keeper:) (even my dad liked them, and hes not to big on sweets)
I’m so glad you loved ’em 🙂
Looks yummy! And the thought of a moist cupcake? Must be heaven…. I normally get unsweetened or bittersweet chocolate. Can I substitute semi-sweet chocolate with bittersweet or unsweetened? If so, what are the adjustments to make… Thank you…
You can sub bittersweet straight across 🙂
Hi, I made the cupcakes today and the frosting wasn’t right when I made it, it seemed very runny and I only tasted butter. Did I miss an ingredient or something?
That can happen if you don’t beat the butter long enough. Did you give it a good 5 minutes on high speed to get it nice and fluffy? This is a rich frosting but it shouldn’t taste buttery.
Just wondering if leaving out the cocoa powder and substituting the coffee for plain water would yeild a just as yummy vanilla cupcake without egg for butter? I used veg. Oil instead but other than that followed the recipe to a T, and my conclusion…These are amazing! Thanks!
You can omit the coffee altogether and just use water and it still tastes great. Hmmm I haven’t tried without the cocoa powder, but it’s probably worth experimenting! 🙂 If you beat me to it, please let me know how it turned out. I imagine you’d have to add a little more flour if you’re pulling out all the cocoa. Try the cupcake frosting i Have posted on my blog for the vanilla cupcakes. https://natashaskitchen.com/2012/06/29/cupcake-frosting-recipe/
Thank you so much! I am going to experiment with it tomorrow or possibly tonight, well just see how excited I am. And I will let you know how it goes 🙂
cupcakes at 10:34? WOW! You’re a brave one! 🙂 Have fun!!
So I tried it with substituting the cocoa powder with 1/4 cup of extra flour and 3 tsp. vanilla extract and it’s pretty yummy! I think next time I would reduce amount of flour by a tbsp or so and keep the vanilla extract at 2tsp and add a beans worth of vanilla bean seeds 🙂
Thank you for sharing your version Justine, I’m curious now to make them the way you tried :).
Do you taste to baking soda? I had made theses but I taste the baking soda. I had tried deluding it in vinegar to but it does not work.:(…they turned out perfect except the baking soda taste
You might try a baking soda that is aluminum free. I switched over recently and it is a much better taste. I didn’t taste the baking soda and I probably wouldn’t post it if I thought there was too much (I’d re-work it studiously until I got it right :)) P.S. are you certain you didn’t accidentally add 1 Tbsp instead of 1 tsp?.
I did it according to the recipe. My mom said to use vinegar to delude it, but it did not work… So I make a cake that calls for sour cream and it has baking soda in it as well. What I did is mix it into the sour cream and it did the trick. I decided I will try it in your recipe even though it doesn’t call for it and it worked!! My mom asked me if I used the same recipe and I told her to try it and she was surprised. But I will look for baking soda that is aluminum free next time. Thanks and I love your web page!!!!!!!!
Thank you 🙂 I’m so glad you enjoy the recipes. Thanks for sharing your tricks! 🙂
just asking when piped will the icing melt if put in the fridge
It actually becomes very firm in the fridge and it needs a good 30 min at least at room temp to soften up again, or you can eat them right away. They’re fabulous either way. It won’t melt at room temp.
im making them now they are amazballs love em. they are in the oven baking im gonna keep this recipe forever thanks so glad i found ur blog thanks Natasha
amazballs eh? lol. Thanks Matthew 🙂
Hey just asking I don’t know but why is there no eggs I don’t know what the leavening ingredient is please tell me would like to know thanks
Some people are allergic to eggs, so this way they can enjoy cupcakes without any side effects :).