A velvety cupcake topped with a rich and creamy buttercream frosting is always a treat. These Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Red Wine Buttercream are the perfect something sweet for sharing with someone special in your life, whether at the end of a particularly stressful day or for special occasions and holidays.

Some days are harder than others, and nothing helps keep you going other than the thought of a delicious sweet treat once you’ve finally gotten home and kicked off your shoes.

A velvety cupcake topped with sweet indulgent butter cream is always a winning combination. Stir in nibs of dark chocolate into the batter, infuse the frosting with a rich red wine, and the result is dark chocolate cupcakes with red wine buttercream.

Red wine & dark chocolate together makes for a beautiful marriage of flavors. Seriously these cupcakes are a dessert lover’s dream.

They’re perfect for infusing a little something special into any day, with gourmet flavor that also makes them fit for holiday celebrations.

Make a batch for yourself and find out what all the fuss is about for yourself!

Ingredients Needed

While they taste gourmet, these cupcakes actually have a pretty simple ingredient list since the recipes uses a box cake mix as the base.

However for simplification purposes, I’ll break them up into two lists- one for the dark chocolate cupcakes, and another for the red wine buttercream frosting.

(SEE RECIPE CARD BELOW FOR THE FULL RECIPE)

For The Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

Cake Mix – One box of chocolate cake mix, whatever brand you prefer.
Wine – Dry white wine, at room temperature
Eggs – 3 eggs, at room temperature
Oil – Canola oil
Dark Chocolate – You can use dark chocolate chips if you can find them, alternatively nibs work as well.

For The Red Wine Buttercream Frosting

Butter – Unsalted butter, softened. While sometimes I recommend using salted butter in desserts because the saltiness can help enhance the sweetness, but frosting isn’t one of those cases.
Sugar – You’ll use both powdered sugar and granulated sugar in this frosting recipe.
Wine – Again a dry red wine, the same one you choose for the cupcake batter.

Once you’ve gathered all your ingredients, you’re ready to whip up a batch of these dark chocolate and red wine cupcakes.

How To Make

Despite their gourmet flavor, making these cupcakes is surprisingly easy.

Start by adding all the cupcake ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix them together just until they’re evenly combined. Overmixing can lead to dense, tough cupcakes and possibly prevent them from properly rising when baked.

Line a cupcake pan with paper liners. Using a large scoop fill the cupcake liners 2/3 of the way full until you’ve used all the batter.

Bake the cupcakes according to the package instructions, and stick a toothpick in the center making sure it comes out clean before removing from the oven.

Let the cupcakes rest for 3-5 minutes, just until safe enough to handle, then transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling completely.

Add the rest of the red wine and the granulated sugar to a small sauce pan set over medium low heat. Stir often until the sugar’s completely dissolved.

Bring the mixture to a simmer, stirring occasionally, cooking until it’s thickened into a syrup that can coat the back of a spoon. You’ll know it’s almost ready when you stir it and it leaves fleeting lines in the bottom of the skillet as you do. Remove the skillet from heat and allow the syrup to cool.

In the bowl of your stand mixer add the butter and powdered sugar, creaming them together until whipped and fluffy. Set the mixture to a slow setting and slowly pour in the syrup, continuing to mix just until evenly combined.

Fit your desired tip into a piping bag and then scoop the frosting into the bag. Twist the end of the bag up to keep the frosting from squeezing out of the top, apply gentle pressure, and frost the completely cooled cupcakes.

Serve & enjoy!

Storing

Store these cupcakes in an airtight container on the counter for up to two days. Alternatively they can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to five days.

TIPS & TRICKS

Be sure to use a dry red wine in this recipe. It gives you the flavor without making the cupcakes or frosting sickeningly sweet.
Do NOT overmix the batter, only until the ingredients have just been evenly combined. This is important because over mixing can lead to tough, dense cupcakes and also possibly prevent them from rising properly during baking.
To ensure the cupcakes are cooked through, be sure to perform a toothpick test before carefully removing them from the oven.
Do NOT attempt to frost the cupcakes before they’re completely cooled, otherwise the frosting will melt.

Other Gourmet Flavored Cupcake Recipes

The flavors meld beautifully into an edible love note that’s as good to give as it is to get. So for all our chocolate lovin’, red wine sippin’ readers– this is the dessert you’ve been waiting for!

Make it to share with the one you love, or make a batch of these dark chocolate cupcakes with red wine buttercream just to treat yourself– because you’re awesome too.

Looking for other gourmet flavored cupcake recipes to enjoy?

Try these:

If you’ve tried these DARK CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES WITH RED WINE BUTTERCREAM, or any other recipe on the site, let me know in the comment section how it turned out, we love hearing from our readers! You can also follow along with me on PINTEREST, FACEBOOK, and INSTAGRAM to see more amazing recipes and whatever else we’ve got going on!