A delicious chocolate dipped cupcake with a soft chocolate cake, a creamy frosting filling, and glossy ganache chocolate shell top dipped like Dairy Queen cupcakes. Made in 30 minutes, these dairy free filled cupcakes are perfect for holidays or a fun dessert.
These chocolate dipped cupcakes resemble the famed Dairy Queen Hi Hat cupcakes, with a chocolate ganache top and a cream filling that nods to homemade hostess chocolate cupcakes. These cupcakes are best of two worlds, a cream white frosting filling with a delicious homemade magic shell on top. And they are dairy free and vegan, using applesauce and pumpkin puree instead of no eggs and no oil like my healthy chocolate cake.
Jump to:
Why You'll Love These
Look Fancy, But Easy to Make. Just bake the delicious fluffy chocolate cupcakes, frost and freeze to allow for easy dipping into the chocolate ganache coating that works like magic shell.
A Healthier Cupcakes. The cupcake recipe is lighter, using applesauce and pumpkin puree instead of eggs and oil, and the magic shell chocolate casing on this cupcake is not the store-bought additive-filled product. Instead, it is simply 2 ingredients, chocolate chips and coconut oil.
Ingredients
- Flour: I used all-purpose flour or a GF baking flour. Oat flour would also work, but use more, 1 ¾ cups.
- Cocoa: The hot chocolate flavor depends heavily on the cocoa you choose. Choose the best quality you have access to, I highly recommend using Dutch process. Do not use a cocoa mix which has many other ingredients and will ruin the cupcake texture.
- Sugar: Organic cane sugar tastes much better than refined white sugar because it is much less processed, and is without exposure to pesticides. Being less processed, the sugar retains more nutrients, including essential amino acids, minerals and vitamins.
- Pumpkin Puree & Applesauce: These two ingredients basically replace eggs and oil, although you can replace the apple sauce with more pumpkin puree.
- Leaveners: baking powder and baking soda
- Milk & Lemon Juice: My favorite way to provide lift to cakes
See the recipe card at the bottom for full information on ingredients and quantities.
Step by Step Instructions
For more detail, visit the complete and printable recipe at the bottom of this post, but here are general steps.
1. Preheat your oven to 350 F, Line a cupcake pan with 12 paper liners, and activate your milk by adding lemon juice to it and let it sit for 5 minutes.
2. To the large mixing bowl, add the wet ingredients and mix until smooth. Add the dry ingredients through a strainer. Add the dry to the wet mixture, and mix until combined, but don't overmix.
3. Add the batter about ¾ full to each cupcake liner using a medium cookie scoop.
👉Want to Save This Recipe?
Enter your email below and we'll send the recipe straight to your inbox.
4. Bake cupcakes for 18 minutes. Or until tester comes out clean.
5. Let cool for ten minutes, then put cupcakes on a cooling rack and allow to cool.
6. Make a vanilla frosting while the cupcakes cool.
7. Pip a tower of vanilla on each cupcake, freeze them. The dip each cupcake frosting tower in a chocolate glaze.
Recipe Tips
Piping The Chocolate Dipped Cupcakes. I use the Wilton 1A large round tip for this recipe. The round tip allows me to pipe a circular mountain on top suitable for dipping. If you are going to use a piping tip, you'll also need frosting bags. You can buy them at any grocery store or even online.
How to Make A Homemade Magic Shell. This version is so easy, just melt together quality chocolate chips and coconut oil. Let the melted chocolate sit to cool about 15 minutes. Freeze the cupcakes after you frost them, and then dip them quickly into the melted chocolate. The frozen frosting on the cupcakes helps the shell freeze quickly.
How to Customize Filled Cupcakes. There are so many ways to customize filled cupcakes. You can make different frostings, even mix both chocolate and vanilla for a marble filling effect. And the magic shell can be other flavors. Here I have other magic shell recipes, including peanut butter magic shell and vanilla magic shell.
How to Store
Cupcakes that are filled and coated last at least one day at room temperature. After that I would refrigerate them. They don't dry out; mine lasted 4 days refrigerated before the cake began to dry.
FAQS
With these high top cupcakes, you pipe the frosting in a tall mountain, freeze for and dip into a glossy melted chocolate ganache. With cupcakes like my Hostess cupcakes, you put a piping bag tip into the cake and squeeze in the frosting or cream.
No, if your frosting is dense, these cupcakes are fine at room temperature, and then refrigerated. They probably don't freeze well as the chocolate coating will dull.
Other Cupcake Recipes
If you tried this recipe or any other recipe on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Thanks for visiting!
📖 Recipe
Chocolate Dipped Cupcakes (filled cupcakes)
Equipment
- handmixer
Ingredients
Devil's Food Cupcakes
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour or a gluten-free baking flour
- ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 cup organic cane sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup dairy-free milk
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- ⅓ cup sweet potato puree Or pumpkin puree or applesauce
- 3 tablespoon applesauce
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Two Frostings:
1. Vanilla Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting
- ¼ cup vegan butter
- ¼ cup vegan cream cheese
- 2 cups powdered sugar
2. 2-Ingredient Chocolate Ganache
- 2 ½ cups dark chocolate
- 1 cup full fat coconut milk from a can, not refrigerated, shaken
- ½ teaspoon of vanilla
- pinch of salt
Coating cupcakes
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- 2 tablespoon coconut oil, avocado oil, olive oil
👉Want to Save This Recipe?
Enter your email below and we'll send the recipe straight to your inbox.
Instructions
Prep
- Preheat your oven to 350 F.
- Line a cupcake pan with 12 liners.
- Sift together the flour and cocoa.
- Activate your milk by adding the lemon juice to it and stirring to make buttermilk. This creates a mixture that activates the baking soda and creates a lovely moist crumb.
Make cupcakes
- To the large mixing bowl, add the flour/cocoa mixture, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Use a hand mixer or just a spoon or whisk to combine these dry ingredients.1 ½ cups all-purpose flour, ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 cup organic cane sugar, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda, ½ teaspoon salt
- Add in the buttermilk, pumpkin puree, applesauce and vanilla.1 cup dairy-free milk, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, ⅓ cup sweet potato puree, 3 tablespoon applesauce, 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Mix with a hand-mixer or hand whisk until combined, but don't overmix.
- Pour the batter evenly into cupcake liners. Fill each ¾ of the way for a slight dome.
- Bake for 22 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.
- Let cool completely before frosting.
Make Chocolate Frosting
- Add the chocolate chips to a pyrex measuring cup.
- Warm the coconut milk in the microwave for 60 seconds. Pour the milk over the chocolate chips and stir until all are melted. If need be, microwave the mixture again for 30 seconds. Stir in the vanilla and salt.2 ½ cups dark chocolate, 1 cup full fat coconut milk, ½ teaspoon of vanilla, pinch of salt
Make Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting
- Blend ingredients together until creamy.¼ cup vegan butter, ¼ cup vegan cream cheese, 2 cups powdered sugar
Frost Cupcakes to Coat
- Frost cupcakes using a large round tip (Wilton 1A). Spiral it up into a mountain. Then freeze the cupcakes about 30 minutes to an hour to allow the frosting to solidify so it doesn't fall off when you dip it into the coating shell.
Make and Apply Chocolate Magic Shell
- Melt the chips in a glass pyrex measuring cup at 60 seconds in the microwave. Add in the oil and stir until all is melted. Let the melted chocolate sit about 20 minutes to cool but not enough to solidify.1 cup chocolate chips, 2 tablespoon coconut oil, avocado oil, olive oil
- Dip each frozen cupcake and allow coating to set.
Vivian says
I love this recipe, I used it for my mom's Birthday and it was so good
Dee Dine says
That's great, thanks for your feedback!