These healthier chocolate cupcakes are lightened up with white whole wheat flour, Greek yogurt, and coconut sugar for the perfect, not-too-sweet dessert that your sweetie will love!
Looking for more healthier desserts to vie that special someone, look no further than these chocolate cupcakes or our raspberry chocolate almond butter cups or even these sugar cookie cut-outs!
Cupcakes > Cake!
Cupcake, do the cupcake danceeeee! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve searched the internets for a healthier cupcake recipe. And it seems like there are so many delicious healthier cake recipes, but few and far between when it comes to cupcakes. And ain’t nobody like a dry or dense cupcake recipe. So, this led us to the decision to finally take the reins and make one of our own!
And let me tell you, cupcakes are just oh so fun to style and photograph. I pretty much just love photographing beautiful desserts of ALL kinds. Sometimes it’s really hard to make a quinoa casserole look pretty, but I NEVER have this issue with cupcakes.
They are just so pretty.
Plus it finally felt like the perfect time to use our new brass measuring cups from Anthropologie.
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Cupcake Decorating!
My favorite part of cupcake making is obviously the cupcake decorating. I literally lay in my bed at night for a good half hour watching dessert decorating tutorials. It just never gets old watching the swirl again and again and again. I’m the same way with cookie decorating. I can just sit there for hours watching someone decorate cookies.
Can someone please agree with me?!
DESSERT VIDEO TUTORIALS FOR LIFE.
A Not-Too-Sweet Cupcake
So, before you jump into making this recipe…I want to preface that this IS NOT an overly sweet cupcake. We asked ourselves, how do you make a healthier cupcake? Well, there are a couple of things you can do:
- Try and use as many whole grains as possible
- Lower the sugar content a bit
- Take down the fat content and sub for Greek yogurt
So, this is exactly what we did! I actually have grown to not like my dessert recipes super sweet. So, I am warning you: if you’re expecting a cupcake with 100g of sugar, this is not the recipe for you. The frosting isn’t super sweet either. Pro Tip: If you are craving more sweet, just keep on adding honey to your frosting until it’s at your preferred sweetness.
That is all. ENJOY.
More Healthy Desserts
Healthier Chocolate Cupcakes
Ingredients
Wet
- 1 cup unsweetened almond milk
- 1 egg large
- ¾ cup light brown sugar packed
- ½ cup nonfat Greek yogurt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil melted
Dry
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup white whole wheat flour
- ⅓ cup unsweetened dark cocoa powder
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
For the Frosting
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 2 tablespoons honey
Instructions
For the cupcakes
- First, preheat your oven to 350ºF and line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners. Spray with cooking spray.
- Next, in a large bowl, cream brown sugar and coconut oil with a hand mixer. Then, add the rest of the wet ingredients and mix until combined.
- Mix together dry ingredients in a medium size bowl and then using a sifter, sift the dry ingredients into the wet so that you get all of the clumps out of the flour.
- Use a hand mixer to combine until smooth. You may need to stop a few times to scrape the sides.
- Fill each cupcake tin about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way full. You should fill around 16 cupcakes.
- Bake at 350ºF for 18 minutes.
For the frosting
- Place 1 cup of heavy cream and 2 tablespoons of honey in a large bowl. Use a hand mixer to whip until stiff peaks are formed. Option to add more honey by the tablespoon for a sweeter frosting.
- Frost right before serving (as it is dairy!).
Tips & Notes
*The nutrition information is for the cupcake only and does not include the frosting.
*Frost cupcakes right before serving.
Substituted the brown sugar with date syrup and the two flours with whole wheat pastry flour. Other than that, followed the recipe exactly and it turned out phenomenal. Absolutely delicious for healthy cupcakes.
The description says coconut sugar but the ingredients lists says to use brown sugar. Can you please clarify which one to use? Also, would using whole wheat flour vs white whole wheat flour work? Thanks 🙂
I’m going to try these for a friend’s baby shower! Is there a way to use a healthier frosting? Perhaps one that uses Greek yogurt? Also, how can I make the frosting pink? Would you recommend using some raspberry flavoring?
Hi Swasti! You can try our healthier cream cheese frosting recipe: https://fitfoodiefinds.com/healthy-cream-cheese-frosting/
Loved this recipe!!!
Can I use regular cocoa powder instead of dark cocoa powder
Yes you can!
These look amazing but would it still taste good if I used a vanilla frosting with it?!
Could I sub coconut flour for the whole wheat?? Excited to try them!
Unfortunately, we don’t recommend that! Coconut flour does not sub 1:1 with any flour.
Which heavy whipping cream you used
Any brand of heavy whipping cream would work!
This has been my go-to dessert recipe for several months now. This recipe is perfect and delicious!
So what is the total calories on the cupcake with frosting?
These look so delicious! They’d be perfect for Valentine’s Day, and I bet you could make them gluten-free using gluten-free flour and a little bit of x gum. 🙂
These look so good! But why do you call it a buttercream frosting if it’s actually just whipped cream?
Schwoops! It was originally going to be a buttercream, but we changed it and I forgot to switch it!
These cupcakes look incredible! I love the fact that the icing is sweetened with honey instead of powdered sugar, that’s something I’d definitely try!
Um this is a resounding YES from me 🙂 that frosting sounds amazing
<3
These cupcake remakes look absolutely stunning and super tasty 🙂 I need to jump on the dessert tutorial watching train…I know I would love it!
It’s addicting and makes time pass very quickly.
These look SO good Lee!! Keep the videos coming too, they’re awesome and super helpful. 🙂
Wahhhh we love video!! So glad you’re loving them too <3