Easter Speckle Cupcakes!

Chocolate and vanilla Easter speckle cupcakes with a chocolate sponge, and vanilla buttercream frosting with a chocolate speckle!

A bake that I have wanted to post for a while, because it’s a classic, and it’s delicious and the amount of people who have asked for this is insane – they’re a cute and simple bake for the Easter season. 

Easter Baking

We are a few weeks into the Easter baking season of 2025 now, and I am loving it so much so far. We all know how much I love baking for Easter because the colours are so pretty, the flavours are delicious and I always just want to post more and most new recipes and bake endless amounts of delicious treats. 

The bakes can range from an easter pavlova, to a mini egg cheesecake, to a salted caramel easter tart and on and on to lots of other bakes. I always like to post a variety as people have different flavour preferences and wants for the styles of bakes they make over this spring season, and you guys always have so many good recipe requests. 

I’ve posted a few new Easter recipes this year so far such as my easter chocolate tart and my slow cooker easter fudge and they are both utterly scrumptious, but I really wanted to post another new bake that is simple, easy and fun for everyone to make. Yes, it’s a little messy, but it’s worth it I promise. 

Easter cupcakes 

I have posted some themed easter cupcakes before with my carrot patch cupcakes, and my chick cupcakes, and I adore both of these recipes. They have a cute and nice theme to them, and can pretty much be flavoured whatever you want. I love a theme like this because usually the colours are brighter and more fun. 

These cupcakes have a typical mix of a chocolate cupcake base, but you can use other flavours if you want (notes below) and then a vanilla buttercream frosting on top (again, you can adapt this flavour!). I used the base flavours because I like them, and it’s what I was in the mood for – but my recipes are always designed to be customisable to a point so you can easily adapt them to your preferences. 

Chocolate sponge 

Where I have done so many chocolate based cupcakes before, from the basic chocolate cupcake up to my chocolate fudge cupcakes, I wanted to adapt this sponge recipe slightly to show a slightly different version again. There are many options when it comes to baking and there isn’t only one option you can choose from. 

Typically I post my other recipes using just cocoa powder for example, and some using melted chocolate, but on this occasion I wanted to level the sponges up to make them richer and more chocolatey without having to be a full blown fudge sponge cake.

• Butter – for a sponge mixture, you can use a block butter at room temperature or you can use a baking spread. 
• Sugar – I love using light brown soft sugar in my sponges, especially with a chocolate base but you can substitute this for caster sugar or golden caster sugar easily 
• Eggs – I tend to stick to medium eggs these days for ease and consistency (All my books use medium eggs as standard) so I use three medium eggs.  
• Flour – self raising flour is a standard in the UK so it’s easy to come by. If you can’t access self raising flour, you can make your own by adding two level teaspoons of baking powder to 150g of plain flour, and mixing in well before using
• Cocoa – I always use a really good quality cocoa powder because I buy a large bag and it’s 100% in strength so it’s very chocolatey. I always recommend a good quality strong cocoa powder
• Chocolate – I added dark chocolate to the cupcake mixture as well. It’s important to use dark chocolate (even if you aren’t a fan) as it will create a better level of chocolate 

Vanilla frosting 

The frosting for this is an American buttercream frosting again, I won’t lie. Partly because I purposely wanted this recipe to be super easy for all skill levels, but if you want to use a swiss meringue buttercream instead you can follow this recipe instead and still colour it the same.

• Butter – I will always say it is really important to use a block butter for a frosting of any sort, as margarine and baking spread is too soft. I use block unsalted butter from any supermarket
• Sugar – icing sugar is the best here as it’s an American buttercream frosting – a ratio of 1:2 butter to icing sugar is the typical mixture for this sort of frosting
• Flavour – I added some vanilla to my topping because I adore the flavour, but this is optional. 
• Colour – I used a strong blue food colouring and added 1-2 drops for the teal colour  

The decoration

So, the most important part of this bake is the ‘speckle’ theme to the easter speckle cupcakes. It may be obvious to say that, but the rest of the recipe is purely a choice on flavours on my part. The speckle theme is quite popular amongst easter baking, and I have done my easter speckle cake already and I adore it. However, that is quite intense, and I wanted to change it up. 

This time, as it’s cupcakes, I find the recipe much easier – it’s still messy, but as you only have to flick downwards onto cupcakes it’s much easier than flicking the speckle all up the sides and on top of a tall cake. I usually keep my cupcakes in the muffin tray once frosted, flick the speckle onto that and then it’s only one dish to wash up. 

The speckle itself consists of a mix of cocoa powder and water. You want to really mix it together to quite a runny but thick mixture. You can practice how well the mix flecks into the sink or similar to work out if you need to add any more water or not. I use a pastry brush and my finger to flick it all over. Then, I top the cupcakes with some easter chocolates – but this is optional. 

Tips & Tricks 

• You can swap up the flavours of the bake by adding any flavourings you want to the cupcake base or frosting. I love using orange in the cupcake base and buttercream, or even lemon or almond. 
• These cupcakes will last for 3+ days once made at room temperature
• You can freeze the cupcakes for 3+ months 
• I use this blue food colouring
• I use this cocoa powder in this bake
• I use a pastry brush for the speckle 
• I also use some simple muffin sized cases for this bake 
• I use a 2d closed star piping tip for the top 

Easter Speckle Cupcakes!

Chocolate and vanilla Easter speckle cupcakes with a chocolate sponge, and vanilla buttercream frosting with a chocolate speckle!

Print Pin Rate

Category: easter

Type: Cupcakes, Easter

Keyword: Chocolate, Mini Eggs

Prep Time: 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes minutes

Cooling & Decorating: 2 hours hours

Total Time: 2 hours hours 40 minutes minutes

Servings: 12 cupcakes

Author: Jane's Patisserie

Ingredients

Cupcake mix

• 150 g unsalted butter/baking spread
• 150 g light brown soft sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• 125 g self raising flour
• 25 g cocoa powder
• 100 g dark chocolate (melted)

Buttercream

• 200 g unsalted butter
• 400 g icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• a few drops blue food colouring

Decoration

• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp water
• easter chocolates

Grams - Ounces

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 180ºc/160ºc fan and prep 12 cases in a muffin tray
• In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy
• Add the flour, eggs, cocoa and melted chocolate and mix until combined
• Split the mixture between the 12 cases
• Bake for 18-22 minutes and cool fully
• In a new bowl, beat the butter on it’s own until smooth
• Add the icing sugar and vanilla extract and mix again
• Add the food colouring - I do a drop of blue to make teal 
• Add the buttercream to a piping bag and pipe onto the cupcakes - I use a 2d closed star piping tip
• In a small bowl, mix the cocoa powder and water to a drippable paste
• Splatter over the cupcakes for the speckle - I use a pastry brush and use my finger to flick it
• Add eggs on top for decoration

Notes

• You can swap up the flavours of the bake by adding any flavourings you want to the cupcake base or frosting. I love using orange in the cupcake base and buttercream, or even lemon or almond. 
• These cupcakes will last for 3+ days once made at room temperature
• You can freeze the cupcakes for 3+ months 
• I use this blue food colouring
• I use this cocoa powder in this bake
• I use a pastry brush for the speckle 
• I also use some simple muffin sized cases for this bake 
• I use a 2d closed star piping tip for the top 

ENJOY!

Find my other recipes on my Recipes Page!

You can find me on:
Instagram
Facebook
Pinterest
Twitter
Youtube

J x

© Jane’s Patisserie. All images & content are copyright protected. Do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to republish this recipe, please re-write the recipe in your own words and credit me, or link back to this post for the recipe.