Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes with Whipped Cream Filling

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I have a weakness for sweets. I love sugar and chocolate in just about any form. Lately, I’ve been working on eating better and being a little bit more moderate with my sweets intake. However, when a friend made up this recipe and brought these delicious treats to celebrate a friend’s birthday, I caved. And, I loved them so much that had to find out how she got them so moist and chocolatey! I mean she made them from scratch!

I was completely shocked when she told me they were gluten free and decided then and there that the recipe MUST be shared with all of you.
So, without further ado, here is the recipe for the yummiest gluten free chocolate cupcakes you’ll ever eat:
Tereza’s Delicious Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes (makes 12)
1/4 cup coconut flour (or sorghum flour)
1/4 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour/tapioca starch
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
6 Tablespoons butter (at room temperature)
3/4 cup sugar (I did half coconut palm sugar and half white sugar, you can also do half brown sugar and half white sugar – whatever you like, the total just has to be 3/4 cup)
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup buttermilk (“recipe” how to make buttermilk follows :-))

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.

Sift together the flours, cocoa, xanthan gum, baking powder and baking soda in a big bowl.

Cream butter and sugars in another bowl until fluffy and beat in eggs one at a time until combined. You can beat it with a whisk or with a hand-held mixer.

Add vanilla.

Alternate adding buttermilk and the flour mixture to the sugar-egg mixture and blend well. It will be thick, almost like pudding, but that’s ok!

Pour or spoon into muffin pan.

Bake for 18-20 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in the pan.

* If you want to make a layered chocolate cake out of this, you will need to double the recipe for two 9-inch cake pans. Double all the ingredients, but instead of 4 eggs, use 3 eggs and 2 egg yolks. Also, the baking time will be longer – about 30-35 minutes!

* I got all the different flours at Sprouts Farmer’s Market – brown rice and tapioca are Bob’s Red Mill brand. They have coconut flour, coconut palm sugar and the xanthan gum in the bulk section – above the big bins, already pre-weighed packed in plastic containers.

Buttermilk

If you don’t have it at hand, you can always put about a cup of milk in a measuring cup and squeeze in about 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar. Let it sit on the counter for about 10-15 minutes until small “curds” form. The exact measurement is not at all important! It’s the reaction of the lemon juice with the milk that will make it “curdle” a little and give it a bit of a tart flavor like buttermilk. You can also do this with coconut milk if you want to go dairy free! That’s what I used for the cupcakes I brought and it worked great!

Chocolate “Ganache” Frosting

1 cup dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup butter or coconut oil
2 Tablespoons honey or agave
2 teaspoons vanilla
a pinch of salt

Melt chocolate and butter/coconut oil in a saucepan or in the microwave (I do microwave for 30 seconds, then stir, then 30 seconds more… and stir with a whisk to combine).

Stir in honey, vanilla and salt.

Cover bowl with plastic wrap and put in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Remove from freezer and whip with a hand mixer until thick and fluffy.

Pipe or spread on cupcakes. This amount will be enough to spread a layer on 12 cupcakes, if you want to pipe it high, you will need more frosting :-).

Whipped Cream Filling/Frosting 

Click here for the how-to. I used raspberry jam and mixed it into the whipped cream until it had a pink tint… and I also used Vanilla Nut extract and it gave it a smooth rum-like taste… so delicious!

And also, here are ways to fill a cupcake.

* Btw, these cupcakes are great without a filling, too! It’s just a nice touch, but not at all necessary.

* If the chocolate flavor is too intense for you, try this Quick Vanilla Buttercream Frosting (I don’t use the whipping cream in it, the texture is just fine without it!). That’s the classic frosting recipe, though, with cups and cups of sugar… I like the chocolate “ganache” one, because it has substantially less of it!

Enjoy!