Cupcakes!!! Don’t make fun of me, but I don’t think I’ve ever made real cupcakes before in my life…if I did it was with friends or family and it was out of a box and they did all of the work while I just licked the spoon ;P I certainly ate enough cupcakes in my life though. But not too many gluten free ones, especially ones with delicious healthy frosting such as this!! You don’t need to feel guilty about licking the spoon for this recipe! Just thinking about all of the times I would beg my mom to buy me a tube of frosting from the grocery store so I could just suck it dry, and all of the time my friend Kathy and I would run to the local deli to buy a huge chocolate cake that we would devour on movie nights, oh man no wonder why I have some stomach troubles today. But this certainly should not cause any problems for your tummy (unless of course you are allergic to avocados or something).
It is also a great recipe to surprise your loved one with for the special holiday coming up…Valentines day!!! Weee!! I’m so excited, as I mentioned in a previous post, I have planned a surprise weekend get away for my husband and I to go on this Friday. Last year Tim planned Valentines day for us. He surprised me with a trip out to Boston, where we went to an awesome Science museum, went to the top of the Prudential Center Skywalk Observatory to view Boston at night (Beautiful! Highly recommended), ate dinner at a delicious Indian restaurant (on one of the coldest nights ever!!), introduced me to the amazing TAZA Chocolate on one of their factory tours, and we almost got stuck driving home in a bad snow fall Sunday night right before work Monday morning! That was kind of scary, but we made it home safely. I hear we are going to get a TON of snow tomorrow night, hoping it misses us!! Because they are calling for 6-12″ in the lower Hudson Valley/NYC area. Bad news for me!
But if I get snowed in, you know what I’ll be munching on;P
I found and altered this recipe from Pop Sugar.
Ingredients
- CUPCAKE:
- 1 Cup - Almond Milk
- 2 tsp - Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1/3 Cup - Melted Coconut Oil
- 1/2 Cup - Maple Syrup
- 2 tsps - Vanilla Extract
- 1.25 Cups - Gluten Free Flour (I used Bobs Red Mills '1 to 1 GF Baking Flour')
- 1/2 Cup - Cocoa Powder
- 1/3 Cup - Coconut Sugar (or stevia, xylitol or brown sugar)
- 1 tsp - Baking Soda
- 3/4 tsp - Baking Powder
- 1 tsp - Sea Salt
- -
- FROSTING:
- 3 Avocados
- 1/3 Cup - Cocoa Powder
- 4-6 Tbsps - Maple Syrup
- 1 tsp - Vanilla Extract
- -
- OPTIONAL:
- Coconut Flakes or Cacao Nibs to garnish
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350F. Oil 12 muffin cups for baking.
- In a small mixing bowl, add together your almond milk and apple cider vinegar and let sit for a few minutes. Then add in the remaining liquid cupcake ingredients.
- In another small mixing bowl, mix together all of your dry ingredients.
- Slowly combine the dry mixture to the liquid bowl and continue stirring until everything is fully blended. It should be a thick and creamy dough.
- Divide the batter into your 12 muffin cups and place in muffin tin to bake for 20-25 minutes. Poke them with a tooth pick around 20 minutes to see if it comes out clean.
- Once finished, remove from oven and let cool completely before applying the frosting!
- To make the frosting, cut up your avocados and scoop out all of the flesh. Place all of the frosting ingredients into a blender (if you want your frosting very sweet, add the full 6
- Tbsp's of Maple Syrup, otherwise go less and add as you go) and blend until creamy and smooth.
- With a small spatula or a frosting bag, apply your frosting onto your cupcakes (when completely cooled!!), sprinkle with coconut flakes or cacao nibs, and enjoy!