Gluten Free Vanilla Cupcakes

In the words Dory, must keep blogging, must keep blogging. I have been slack this month with blog entries and today I decided to just skip all the backlogged (I make my own rules) recipes and put up the recipe I promised for my friend Jane. I think her fiancé Pat is in for a surprise with these gluten free treats.



I have made this recipe many times before and for sometime it was the only cupcake recipe I would make. However, if you read the recipe below you will see the first instruction (after turning on your oven of course) is beating the eggs for 4 solid minutes. This can feel like forever when you have to stand and hold the beaters and of course this was back in the day before my Kitchen Aid and burning through £3 hand beaters from Argos was a regular occurrence.

Eventually I moved away from making these cupcakes so frequently, as lets be honest self-raising flour is a whole lot cheaper than ground almonds and even with the Kitchen Aid, my all in one vanilla cupcake recipe was a lot quicker to make.

Gluten Free Vanilla Cupcakes

adapted from the Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache cookbook 

Makes 12

2 free range eggs

160g caster sugar

200g peeled & finely grated courgette *cough* zucchini *cough*

1 tsp vanilla extract

100g white rice flour

100g ground almonds

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

for the icing

300g icing sugar

50g unsalted butter, softened

125g cream cheese, cold, it has to be cold!

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line a cupcake tray with paper cases.

Whisk up the eggs and sugar in a large mixing bowl until they are pale and fluffy; this takes about 4 minutes of solid whisking.

Whisk the grated courgette and the vanilla extract into the bowl until well incorporated. Be carefully dropping this into the bowl, you don't want to knock out the air you have just spent 4 minutes beating in. 

Finally, whisk in the flour, almonds, baking powder and salt until everything is completely combined, again careful when adding to the fluffy mixture.

Spoon the mixture into your cases until they about 2/3 full and bake for 20 minutes until risen and blonde on top. Once the cupcakes are cooked, cool them in the tin for 10 minutes. Remove from tin and allow to cool completely before icing. 

Whilst they are cooling, make the icing. I usually make this and then stick it back in the fridge to harden up which makes it easier to pipe, when you take it out of the frige you will have to give it a quick beat before its ready to use.

Beat the icing sugar and butter together with electric beaters on a slower speed until the mixture comes together. If you don't want icing sugar everywhere use a damp clean tea towel to cover the mixer. Straight from the fridge; add the cream cheese and beat until mixed through and then turn the beaters up to a medium-high speed and beat for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy, however do not overbeat at it can quickly become runny. Pipe or use a palet knife to ice cupcakes. 

Happy Baking x