There have been quite a few requests for a basic vanilla gluten free cupcakes recipe.
To be honest, I went through many failed gluten free cupcake attempts before arriving at the recipe posted below. One experiment was too dry; another too crumbly; still another tasted like plaster of Paris poured into cupcake liners and baked.
(In case you were wondering, that experiment went straight into the trash.)
I’m glad I didn’t give up on the gluten free cupcakes recipe (although I did seriously think about it after the unfortunate plaster debacle…). These basic vanilla gluten free cupcakes turn out soft, perfectly domed, and delicious every single time.
Above, the gluten free cupcakes are iced with my Healthy Nutella Recipe.
Gluten Free Cupcakes
Ingredients
Gluten Free Cupcakes
- 1/2 cup plus 3 tbsp Bob’s gluten free flour (regular white flour or spelt will work for a non-gf version) (90g)
- 1/4 tsp xantham gum
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup xylitol or sugar of choice (90g)
- 1/4 cup mayonnaise spread (such as Earth Balance, Vegenaise, or even homemade cashew mayo) (58g)
- 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup plus 1 tbsp water (95g)
Instructions
Gluten Free Cupcakes Recipe: Preheat oven to 350F. Place 6-7 liners inside a cupcake pan. In a large bowl, combine first five ingredients and stir well. In a separate bowl, combine remaining ingredients and whisk together until the mayo spread is completely smooth. Pour wet ingredients into dry and stir until just evenly combined. Divide among the liners (these cupcakes rise a lot), and bake 22 minutes or until cupcakes have domed and a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let sit 15 minutes before removing from the pan. Refrigerate for optimum freshness. (The recipe for the healthy chocolate frosting shown in the photos is linked under the second picture in this post.)
Question of the Day:
Have you had any recent recipe failures?
With my job requiring multiple recipe experiments each day, I have recipe failures all the time! Some recent ones would include chocolate cheesecake cupcakes that blew up in the oven (not exactly a joy to clean up), super gummy quinoa cookies, and an extremely unfortunate attempt at a Butterfinger pie. (Butterfinger pie sounds really good, right? It wasn’t!)
Ooh, or remember the exploding cake in my post on Food Photography Gone Wrong?
So yummy! We have tried several gf cupcake recipes and they have all turned out dense. Several called for so many eggs that they came out more like a baked custard than a cupcake. These had a crusty outside and a flaky inside. I used sugar, not xylitol. I did cut back on the amount of sugar a bit to suit our tastes. Every thing else was to the letter and like I said, they turned out wonderful! Thank you.
Dear Katie,
I have one question and one remark.
First the question: if using homemade cashew mayo (and therefore making your own mayo), should you forgo the pepper in the mayo? I mean, it might just taste… weird. Or do you have any recipe (yours or another blogger’s) to recommend?
And now the remark: I have the celiac disease, so I always make your recipes glutenfree. One of the best solutions I have found is to use buckwheat flour (the slightly nutty taste works SOOOOOO well with any chocolate-based recipe, also with vanilla, and I have found it nicely complements any pumpkin recipe).
I prefer using buckwheat, and sometimes I experiment with almond flour, maybe mixed with buckwheat, garbanzo flour or something else, because I find too many of the ingredients in most GF flours have “strange” (read: “chemical”) names,.
I am writing this because next time you are looking for a perfect GF recipe, you can maybe try buckwheat? I would be thrilled to know what your creativity makes out of it!
But seriously: with vegan mayo?!! That’s so inventive!!!!!!! I can’t wait to try that this evening!!!
Lots of love and cupcakes
Audrey
Yes definitely don’t add the pepper lol.
Hi Katie.Could i use rice milk instead of mayo in these cupcakes?
Whenever you include bob’s red mill gf flour in the ingredients, is that the All purpose or 1 to 1 flour?
You can use either, but the all purpose just wouldn’t be gluten free.
I’d like o make these in ‘mini’ size for my book club. The ladies tend to preserve small bites.
How would in adjust the baking time?