Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes

   

   
I took part in Cupcakes for the SPCA here in New Zealand and I needed 6 GF cupcakes for a lady who was making a donation. So as I said I needed 6 BUT ended up with 28! I know I should’ve halved the recipe but half way through it I was like oops! Forgot! So if you know anyone who needs 20+ GF chocolate cupcakes send them my way! 

I was a bit worried about making them at first ‘cos I like gluten! I put it in all of my baked goods! However this was the quickest, simplest and almost tastiest chocolate cupcake recipe I’ve made yet. 

The cupcakes themselves turn out so smooth and are a dream to buttercream! You’ve all got to try them! I didn’t have to go to the shops at all and I’ve finally made a big dent in the large bag of GF flour that I don’t know why I own! 

Ingredients

2 cups GF flour

2 cups caster sugar

1 cup cocoa powder (100%)

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

4 eggs

1 cup sunflower oil

3 tsp Madagascan vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups water
Method

Combine all dry ingredients.

Mix well.

Add wet ingredients.

Mix well.

Scrape down bowl.

Mix again and taste.

You may need more vanilla.

Pop into cases in cupcake tray.

Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

Check them after 10 minutes and turn. 

Allow to cool before frosting. 
The frosting

At the moment where I’m living my kitchen is always either too cold ( it’s winter) or too warm when we are cooking. So it’s pretty difficult to get butter at the right consistency for buttercream. My method for this frosting was literally beating butter (about 100g) until it was reasonably creamy, adding about a cup of sifted icing sugar and half a cup of cocoa powder. This worked well until I attempted to put into a ping bag, it had hardened too much. That’s when I added about 1/4 of astandard block of Philadelphia cream cheese- I had nothing else useful! It worked a treat! I beat the life out of it and working quickly got it into a piping bag and onto the cupcakes! Main thing is to keep tasting!