Chocolate Cream Cheese Cupcakes are perfect for birthday parties, curing your chocolate cravings, and really any other event you can come up with. These moist chocolate cupcakes with chocolate chip cream cheese filling are almost TOO good!
Preheat oven to 350 °F (177 °C). Prepare muffin pan by lining with muffin liners or by spraying with cooking spray.
In the mixing bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the ingredients for the filling (except the chocolate chips) until light and fluffy. Gently fold in the chocolate chips. Set aside.
In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and add in the water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla extract. With a whisk or wooden spoon, mix together the dry with the wet ingredients until well combined.
Fill muffin cups with 2/3 full of batter then spool 1 level tbsp. of filling into the center of each cupcake. Repeat until all batter and filling have been used up.
Bake 20-25 minutes or until cake portion comes out clean with a toothpick. Let cupcakes cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing and transferring to wire rack to cool completely.