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The surprise is on the inside! It doesn’t need to be a Birthday to donate these Chocolate Pudding Filled Cupcakes to your friends! An airy chocolate cake cradles a hidden dollop of rich chocolate pudding topped with a simple Vanilla Buttercream.
CUPCAKE UPDATES: Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting Recipe – Vanilla Cupcakes Recipe – Snowball Cupcakes Recipe
Ingredients for Chocolate Pudding for filling:
6 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/3 cups whole milk
2 egg yolks
1/2 tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch salt
Ingredients for Chocolate Cupcakes:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
3 1/2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate, melted
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Ingredients for Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:
2 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 tablespoons whipping cream
NOTES: This recipe makes 12 -16 cupcakes.
Make the pudding. In a saucepan, over medium heat, combine sugar, cornstarch and cocoa powder. Pulverize mixture with the back of a spoon to remove lumps. Stir in milk. As heat takes over mixture, bubbles will disappear and powders will incorporate into the liquid. Cook over medium heat until thickened and bubbly. Turn the heat down to medium low. Pour some of the chocolate mixture into two beaten egg yolks and pour the egg mixture back into the pan. This “tempers” the eggs and prevents them from scrambling. Cook and stir a few minutes more. Turn off heat and stir in butter, pinch salt and vanilla. Transfer to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Press plastic wrap onto surface of pudding so a “skin” will not form. Allow to cool in the refrigerator.
Make the cupcakes. Preheat oven to 350(F). Melt chocolate in microwave carefully. In an electric mixer cream butter, white sugar and brown sugar. Add eggs and combine thoroughly. Add melted chocolate and vanilla and combine thoroughly. Add flour, salt and baking soda and combine thoroughly. Add buttermilk slowly and combine thoroughly until smooth. Fill muffin cups 3/4 full with batter and bake for 20-25 minutes. Cool the cupcakes in the tins for 10 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool completely on a wire rack before filling and icing.
Make the frosting. For best results, use the wire whisk attachment on your mixer and have all the dairy cold. Sift powder sugar or pour sugar into a bowl and mash with the back of a spoon to remove lumps.Mix sugar and butter on low speed until well blended and then increase speed to medium-high and beat for another 3-4 minutes. Blend in vanilla. Add tablespoons of cream gradually and continue to beat on medium-high speed for several minutes more, until light, fluffy and smooth. Mixture will have a pearly sheen and perfect spreading consistency. Do not refrigerate before frosting cupcakes.
Finish the cupcakes. Cut a cone shape out of the top of the cupcake. Look! A place to put pudding! Cut the point off the cone. Fill cake with pudding. Replace top. Frost. Decorate. Share. Enjoy.
HOW MUCH BETTER DOES THIS LOOK KNOWING WHAT’S ON THE INSIDE?
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Link to the Sec. 170(c) Birthday Cupcakes video.
Link to the accompanying Sec. 170(c) Birthday Cupcakes blog post.
Hi Svetlana! It’s great to have readers from Russia! Thank you.
For cups to grams conversion, it varies by ingredient. Here is a link to a handy converter for changing cups to grams:
http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/cooking
Hope this helps!
Hi Betty!I have made the vanilla cupcakes today. The base was fantastic, but the buttercream, I don’t know what I have done wrong(the only thing was I have not got the icing sugar and made one of my own from sugar wich I put in the coffe grinder to make it like a flour)well, when I mixed butter, sugar etc, it looked good but I the thing is I felt the sugar in the butter cream, it did not disolve!!!What have I done wrong Betty? And another question, for these chocolate cupcakes, can I use normal cooking chocolate wich is sweet?I can’t find unsweet chocolate here. Soif I can howmach sugar shall I use for them not to be to sweet? Thank you very much
Hi Svetlana,
Glad to hear you liked the cake of the Vanilla Cupcake!! Sorry to hear about the Buttercream… but I think you’ll have better results with store bought powdered sugar (instead of trying to grind your own) because they grind powdered sugar like 10 times to get it so fine.
Sugar won’t dissolve unless you have heat and if you have heat, you’ll mess up the butter. I’m sorry I don’t have other suggestions for you.
As far as the sweetened-unsweetened chocolate… I can’t really say as I’ve not experimented with it. If you do any experimenting, I’d love to know what you come up with.
Good luck!!! Have fun!!!
Your baking style is cool!(Y) I like your creativity, haha!
Thanks, Sheryl!
Already took a few recipes for my child’s birthday party! Awesome Betty! This one will be the last, as a desert. Thank you!
Hmm, I still prefer this recipe without the icing on top but it wouldn’t be called a birthday cupcake recipe wouldn’t it? :D I’m gonna try making this over the weekend
This is a good way and a different way than how I make mine. I fill my cupcake liner 1/2 way with batter, cook 5 min’s, take out and put a tsp full of pudding in center then put other half of batter on top. Then finish baking. I dont ice mine for my kids n i prefer it without. I also some times put fruit pie filling in place of the pudding….those are a real big hit.
tried it it was delicious. My family loved it. and it was perfect for the party. by the way im twelve and made it on my own.
WooHoo, Samantha! So glad you and your family enjoyed the cupcakes! Thanks for letting me know. I hope you’ll try my Vanilla and Red Velvet too!
i am 10 and i tryed your recipe and me and my lil sis LOVVVVVVVVVVVVE
THEM
LOL
These cupcakes are delicious!! I did change a few things to make them “my own” however. Due to lack of time, I used a chocolate fudge cake mix for the cupcakes. I followed the pudding recipe exactly and its wonderful! Instead of vanilla buttercream, I made a chocolate cream cheese frosting that made these cupcakes chocolatey delicious!! Thankyou so much for the wonderful recipe I will definitely make these again real soon!!
WooHoo!! Baking is all about making them your own. I know this, because I didn’t get to have any of your cupcakes – sounds delish! Thanks for commenting :)
Are you suppose to refridgerate them if you don’t finish eating them?
Would this work with boxed pudding and boxed cakemix??
You can cover and refrigerate them if you don’t eat them all. You can use the boxed stuff if you want. :)
Tried making this before but couldn’t get the texture quite right. This recipe worked perfect, thanks!
Hey Sarah! You should make more recipe videos, i’d love to see you make this recipe and the peanut butter cup cake one too!
Hi Holly! Believe it or not, there is a video for this Pudding Filled Cupcake recipe. It’s an oldie and a doosie. Could definitely use an upgrade :) Thanks for the requests!!
Hi Betty!
Please tell me how much cups is 3 1/2 ounces, if we use a regular cup?
I would try the cupcakes only without pudding or icing.
Hi Rijul, I’m not really sure how to convert 3.5 ounces of unsweetened baking chocolate to cups. Unsweetened baking chocolate is in a “candy bar” form but is not sweet. It is portioned into 1 ounce squares.
If you can’t find unsweetened baking chocolate, you can use 3 level Tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa POWDER + 1 Tablespoon butter for each ounce of unsweetened baking chocolate. So, for this recipe, you would need just a little more than 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa POWDER plus 3 (extra) Tablespoons of butter.
Hope this helps!
Thanks.;);)
Wow, that looks so delicious The cupcake itself is already tempting, but with an extra chocolate pudding filling? who can ever resist that? Think i’ll try and bake it myself and see how it turns out..
Quick question: What temp should the butter be in for the frosting? It just says butter and I was wondering if it needed to be softened or melted? The cupcakes came out beautifully :)
Sorry, Kate! Room temperature butter is best for the frosting. So happy to hear you like the cupcakes!!
Just found your cupcake recipe – how do I go about receiving your recipes daily or whenever they are posted. Happy for your pregnancy news – naming the baby is a challenge (pleasing everyone) but that is such a personal responsibility — when you hold her, the suitable name will just seem so obvious. Hope to hear from you.
Hi Beverly, Thanks for your comment :) Picking a baby name is hard — especially pleasing everyone! To subscribe to my site, in the bottom right-hand footer of the website, there is a box that says “subscribe.” You can enter your email address and anytime I publish something new, you’ll get a note in your inbox. I went ahead and signed you up. First, you’ll get a confirmation from Feedburner then, you’re in! Thank you so much!!
Hi Sara! I have tried a lot of your recipes but never commented:(. I have yet to try this one but I have three questions:
1) I just moved to a country where they don’t sell brown sugar, can I use white instead?!
2) how long do you beat the eggs with the butter and sugar?
3)Are these dense or airy?
Could I make these on a saturday and serve them on Monday? Or will they become soggy?
When I was little (eh-hmm, early 80’s), my mom made these all the time, but called them “Puddin’ Pockets.” Then they just never appeared again. And apparently, no one else has the same fond remembrance & obsession of them as I have had. I’ve Googled them a few times with no success, but today found an old commercial for Pillsbury Puddin’ Pockets. They were a kit that never caught on- and bellow that was your recipe. So I made them. And then I ate five, and I am by no means a binge eater on your usual day. Now that I’ve found this recipe, and smacked myself on the head for all the experiments of piped fillings of toppings- I will never regret Bavarian Cream Day(S!) however- I will be giving my son and his friends memories of pudding-filled cupcakes. I gave my mom ONE and showed her the commercial which prompted an, “Oh, those Puddin’ Pockets. Honey, those were from some box I bought at the store. (Obviously, Mama- I’ve never seen you make anything from scratch.) I’m proud to say that when you open my pantry doors, you see nothing but jars of dry ingredients, and my fridge is filled with homemade items or fresh ingredients. And the deep freeze is locally sourced meats, fruits, and veggies, along with meal-preps for my slow cooker, pressure cooker, or or skillet, and pre-proportioned soups & stews.
And the kitchen counter has a plate with 9, no, 8 pudding-filled chocolate cupcakes.
So awesome!! Thanks for sharing!!