Leila's Vanilla Cupcakes

these adorable sugar butterflies are courtesy of Sugar Robot

I've tried a few different recipes for vanilla cupcakes, but I liked these the best. This is loosely based on a chocolate cupcakes recipe in my Sophie-Safe Cooking book that I've modified to make into vanilla.

Leila’s Vanilla Cupcakes

  free of gluten, wheat, dairy, egg, corn, soy

CUPCAKES:

2 cups gluten-free oat flour

1 cup organic evaporated cane juice (sugar)

¼ cup coconut flour

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. fine sea salt

1/3 cup melted coconut oil

1 tsp. apple cider vinegar

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup vanilla coconut milk

FROSTING:

½ cup Spectrum shortening

2 cups organic powdered sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

2 Tb. Coconut milk (add more if you want lighter frosting, less if you want it thick and dense)

1.       Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tins with paper liners. Cute ones only, please! J

2.       Mix oat flour, sugar, coconut flour, baking soda, and salt together in one bowl with a whisk.

3.       Mix oil, vinegar, and vanilla together in another bowl.

4.       Add oil mixture and coconut milk to the dry ingredients and blend well.

5.       Pour into lined muffin tins, fill about halfway full. I use an ice cream scoop for this…it is the most amazing tool for cupcake & muffin batter…I don’t know what I did without it!

6.       Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, or until the top springs back to the touch.

7.       Let them cool in the pan for a minute or two, then transfer to a wire rack to cool the rest of the way.

8.       To make the frosting: soften the shortening a bit first if necessary. Cream the shortening in the mixer, than add powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk. Here’s where I do some tasting and testing as I go…some days it needs more milk, some days more powdered sugar. My daughter LOVES vanilla, so for her, I used vanilla coconut milk in addition to the vanilla extract so she could get that really obvious VANILLA flavor. Play with the frosting recipe and suit it to your liking. You can’t really mess this up. Just make sure it gets really well blended and there are no chunks or lumps of shortening or sugar.

**Frosting cupcakes tip: a good old butter knife or spatula works fine. But to step it up a notch, I use a ziplock bag with the tip of the corner cut off. I insert a Wilton pastry tip (1M), fill the bag halfway or so with frosting, and decorate away. It adds that sort of professional finish.