Chocolate Football Cupcakes Recipe
Calling all football fans, these game day cupcakes are for you! Actually, I’m not a football fan and these game day cupcakes are definitely right up my alley. So let’s just say the game day football-themed cupcakes are going to be a winners for everyone. After all, it’s extremely hard to resist homemade chocolate cupcakes! Especially when the cupcakes themselves are moist and tender, but then they’re filled with chocolate ganache to keep them even more moist. Finally, they’re frosted with scrumptious chocolate buttercream frosting and then white buttercream comprises the stitches on the footballs. If the ingredients list looks a little long, it is. That’s because every aspect of these cupcakes is from scratch and homemade. However, as you read through the post I offer suggestions how to make the recipe a bit faster and easier via using chocolate cake mix and omitting the ganache filling aspect. Finally, this is a lengthy post because of the three stages to the cupcakes but if you’re a Super Bowl cupcake pro, just scroll down to the recipe and skip my discussion of the halftime event so to speak.
Ingredients in Football Cupcakes
There are three components to these festive and fun football-themed cupcakes — batter, ganache filling, and frosting.
Cupcake Batter
Granulated sugar Brown sugar Oil Butter Eggs + yolk Buttermilk Sour cream All-purpose flour Cocoa powder Baking powder Salt Baking soda Brewed coffee
Ganache Filling
Heavy cream Semi-sweet chocolate chips
Frosting
Butter Confectioners’ sugar Milk or half-and-half Vanilla Salt Cocoa powder
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make Football Cupcakes
To make the Super Bowl cupcake batter, follow these quick and easy steps. (You are basically just whisking together wet ingredients, then adding in dry.)
Making the Frosting
To make this scrumptious buttercream frosting for this cute Super Bowl dessert, follow these instructions:
Making the Chocolate Ganache Filling
After you make the frosting, you need to work on the ganache filling and filling the cupcakes.
How to Frost and Decorate Football Cupcakes
To do this, fill the football shape in with frosting; this will take about 2 more lines of frosting to fill. Use a spoon or knife to smooth the frosting lines out. You may want to go back in and gently clean up the outside edges of the football shape.
Make-Ahead Instructions
After filling the cupcakes with ganache and then frosting them, I like to give them a couple hours to rest and set up fully but it’s up to you. Make sure you use buttermilk and not regular milk as discussed in the section above (with alternatives suggested). There’s a tablespoon of sour cream in the cupcake batter recipe and you can use plain Greek yogurt instead if desired. For the cocoa powder in both the cupcake batter and frosting, select unsweetened natural cocoa powder. Do not use something with sugar already added and don’t use hot chocolate mix. I don’t know if Dutch process cocoa will work so use something like Hershey’s which is a guarantee in this Super Bowl cupcake recipe. When you add the coffee, make sure it’s barely warm to room-temperature, and not piping hot. That would be destructive to the batter so make sure it’s not too hot. It’s perfectly fine to make this football dessert the day before of your game day party or event so that you’re not stressing on the day of!
Storage Instructions
Because baked goods of all kinds tend to dry out in the fridge, and I find that chocolate desserts are even more prone to drying out, I store the cupcakes airtight at room temp for 2 to 3 days. If you’re planning on storing them longer, they’ll keep airtight in the fridge for for up to 1 week.
More Easy Chocolate Cupcake Recipes:
Kitchen Sink Cupcakes – Rich and decadent chocolate cupcakes topped with everything but the kitchen sink including pretzels, potato chips, toffee bits, and chocolate chips! FAST and EASY cupcakes to make because they use a chocolate cake mix base to save you time! Tried this recipe? Leave a review! Consider leaving a 5 star rating if you’ve made and loved one of my recipes! Irish Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes — A tender chocolate cupcake made from scratch with batter that’s spiked with Guinness, along with a hint of Jameson Irish whiskey in the chocolate ganache filling. The cupcakes are frosted with a silky smooth Baileys buttercream frosting!! Not too boozy and not too sweet! Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins — These chocolate chocolate chip muffins are closer in taste to a rich chocolate cupcake, but have the texture of a muffin. They’re soft, moist, dense, and loaded with chocolate! Chocolate Cupcakes with Cookies and Cream Frosting – Soft, fluffy cupcakes with frosting you’ll want to eat by the spoonful! Amazingly there’s no eggs or butter so you can have seconds!!
