These cupcakes were for my baby boy Brooks’ FOURTEENTH birthday. It’s hard to believe.  If you have kids of your own then you totally can relate.  You blink twice… maybe three times, and they’re almost ready to get their driver’s license!  We celebrated his birthday last weekend with some of his buddies hanging out at our house for the night.  I made him a lacrosse themed birthday cake that I shared on Instagram!  My kid is completely and totally absorbed in the sport of lacrosse.  He loves it, and he is pretty darn good at it too!

My little (6′ 2 1/2″) goofball loves his chocolate!

For Brooks’ actual birthday, he had a long lacrosse practice to attend… so I made these cupcakes for his team.  One of his good buddies on the team had a dairy allergy.  We didn’t want to leave him out… or for him to feel weird about not being included… so I decided to make dairy free cupcakes for the whole team.  I really wanted them to taste just like regular chocolate cupcakes. I was most worried about the frosting. Since I always use butter in my frosting recipes, I wasn’t quite sure how well a “non butter” frosting would work!

My handsome boy!  College in just 4 years… yikes!

How do Dairy Free Chocolate Cupcakes taste?

I’m so excited to share with you how fabulous these cupcakes turn out.  They are so good that I make them often… even when I don’t need to worry about any dairy allergies.  This recipe is actually egg-free too.  The cakes are so chocolatey and moist, and the addition of dairy free mini chips is a fabulous idea too.  That makes them extra chocolatey!  (You can find a couple of brands of dairy free chips at Whole Foods and other specialty markets… sometimes regular markets have them in their gluten-free section).  I use a frosting recipe from my friend Alisa’s blog:  Go Dairy Free.  She shared her best dairy free frosting recipe with me:  Amazing Mylk Chocolate Frosting.  I can’t even describe how good this frosting is.  So creamy and delicious.  No weird flavors or anything.  I will make it all the time!  Happy 14th Birthday to Brooks… RecipeBoy!

Here are a few more chocolate cupcake recipes you might like to try:

Chocolate Cupcakes with Peppermint Icing Easy Moist Chocolate Cupcakes Chocolate Wedding Cupcakes Sugar Free Chocolate Cupcakes Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes Oreo Cupcakes Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache Greek Yogurt Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes