The thing is, I have kids now. And they have food allergies. AND they go to birthday parties where other people eat cake & cupcakes & things that look yummy. Things my kids want to eat. And those parties don't usually have those treats in a top 8-free version. So bake I must.
Those of you who know me from other forums (TKWFA, mostly) know that I have a GF baking 'crush' (if you will) on Karina, the Gluten-Free Goddess. I have only made a few of her recipes but I very much admire her a) writing, b) ability to create/convert a kick-ass GF (at the very least) recipe, c) the fact that she has some recipes I can use without making ANY substitutions, and d) she's given me the closest thing I've had to cheese in almost 2 years. That's almost love, baby.
Normally, when I have to make changes to a recipe I go ahead & modify the instructions and all so that I can post it here in its entirety without infringing on anyone's intellectual property. But I only made one tiny substitution to each of these recipes so I'll just link you to them on Karina's own blog. Look around, make yourself at home. She's not top 8-free but odds are you'll find some stuff there you can convert for your family without too much trouble.
I've made these cupcakes twice now, close enough together that I only needed one batch of frosting (I'm a light froster). I'm putting them on my short list of go-to cupcake recipes. My toddler liked them better the first time but now turns them down. I wonder if they're too strong for him...they do have a bit of a dark chocolate flavor to them. My sugar-loving, carb-junkie preschooler, on the other hand, would probably eat them all day long if I'd let him. And I'm not sure why but the recipe seems to give me quite a few more cupcakes than it's supposed to. Am I being stingy on cupcake height? Don't know. Like I said, I'm not really a baker...which should be reassuring, since these cupcakes turned out pretty well for me. :)
So without further ado, the GF Vegan Chocolate Cupcake recipe. The only thing I substituted was that I used oat milk in place of the coffee. My preschooler isn't so hot on the java yet. ;)
And the Vegan Coffee Icing recipe (just scroll down from the cupcake recipe). Again I subbed oat milk for coffee. I think I made mine a bit too thin (way thinner than Karina did, as you'll see) but I didn't want to thicken it as I was worried the powdered sugar flavor would take over. Honestly, I found it a tad strong already.
On a side note, I'm thinking the chocolate cupcakes would be divine with Karina's Vegan Orange Creme Icing. The orange creme cupcakes, by the way, were my last attempt at cupcakes and I thought the flavor was amazing, but I underbaked them. And my palm shortening was apparently past its prime so it never got creamy (ick...small globs of it stayed, well, globby). Those will be my next cupcakes and I'll post more then...if they're as good as I suspect they will be once properly baked.
