Today dear friends I am sharing a recipe for the most delicious chocolate raspberry cupcakes with a raspberry butter cream frosting that is simply out of this world!
Chocolate raspberry cupcakes! Oh my!
So those who have been reading my blog will know that I adore baking. It’s my favorite thing to do in the kitchen. I love licking the batter from bowls. I love the smell of delicious goodies and breads coming out of the oven. I love breaking off a piece of cake or muffin or bread when it’s a little too hot, just because I have to try it. And of course I love the results. Seriously, what’s not to love about baking?
Yum!
It’s also something that comes pretty naturally to me, for some reason. I do having baking disasters, but not nearly as often as I have other kinds of kitchen mishaps. Now that I’ve said that, I have to confess that the first time I made these I forgot to add the key ingredient for gluten-free baking: xanthan gum. My cupcakes were a delicious, but totally crumbly mess. Instead of crying over crumbly cupcakes I put the crumbs in a bag and stored them in the freezer, knowing that they will be just the thing for cake truffles sometime in the future.
The frosting is amazing!
Now, while the cupcakes are really yum, I have to take a moment to rave about the frosting. If you’re a fan of Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero you probably own their book, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. If not, you might want to run out and grab it, because not only does it have great recipes, it has a whole bunch of useful tips about how to make perfect cupcakes every time. In it, they share their recipe for raspberry butter cream and talk about the experimenting it took to get the perfect amount of raspberry flavor. In the end, they use an Italian soda flavoring. Dare I say it, but I think my frosting recipe is *that* much better. The raspberry flavor is mind-blowingly intense, it’s a beautiful bright pink, and there is no sugary syrup anywhere in sight. The secret ingredient? Freeze-dried raspberries.
So without any more ado, here is the cupcake recipe you should be making this weekend…
- 1/3 cup cocoa powder
- 1/3 cup oat flour
- 1/3 cup millet powder
- 3 tbsps + 1 tsp arrowroot powder
- 2 tbsps tapioca starch
- 3/4 tsp xanthan gum
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup vegan milk
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 1/3 cup hazelnut oil (it adds a lovely flavor, but you could use olive oil instead)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 tsps raspberry extract
- 3/4 cup coconut palm sugar
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit/180 degrees Celsius.
- Prepare a cupcake tin with liners, or lightly grease.
- Sift together cocoa powder, oat flour, millet flour, arrowroot powder, tapioca starch, xanthan gum, baking soda, baking powder and salt and give it a stir to combine.
- Mix together the wet ingredients.
- Add the sugar to the wet ingredients and whisk until the sugar dissolves.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and using a chopping motion mix to combine until all large lumps are gone. Be careful not to over-mix: it will make your cupcakes gummy.
- Fill your cupcake holders until they are about 3/4 full.
- Bake for 14-16 minutes for mini cupcakes or 20-22 minutes for regular cupcakes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few large crumbs.
- Remove from the oven and allow them to cool on a baking rack completely before frosting.
- 1 cup of freeze-dried raspberries
- 1 3/4 cups of powdered sugar
- 2 tsps cornstarch
- 1/2 tsp raspberry extract
- 1/2 cup vegan butter at room temperature
- 1/4 cup of soy creamer or soy milk
- Using a mortar and pestle crush freeze-dried raspberries into a fine powder.
- Using a strainer, sift the raspberry powder into a medium bowl to separate out the seeds and then discard the seeds.
- Add the powdered sugar and cornstarch to the raspberry powder and stir to combine.
- Add vegan butter to the mixture in chunks, along with soy creamer and raspberry extract.
- Mix together with a rubber spatula until smooth and creamy.
Don’t you want one? Of course you do!
I want my cakes to look good as well as taste delicious!
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