Friday 25 May 2012

Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes

Wait! Don't stop reading just because you read the words 'gluten free.' (unless you're coeliac in which case read on!) I know it's tempting, but I promise these are nothing like the gluten free cakes you buy in shops. They're rich, moist (ew) and really quite delicious - almost more brownies than cupcakes.

I'll admit, the challenge of making a gluten free cake scared me at first. I did a ridiculous amount of googling/recipe book trawling before stumbling across what I thought was the perfect recipe. The pictures looked delicious and the reviews were great. However I then read the ingredients.... 'xanthan gum' 'tapioca flour'... these unfamiliar words did make me question what on earth I was letting myself in for but I decided to just go for it.

This attitude changed considerably after discovering that you could only buy said unfamiliar ingredients in health food shops and I'd left it a little late to be health food shop trawling. So after about an hour of near hysteria in Holland and Barrett I did some emergency googling and found a much easier, flourless chocolate cupcake recipe.

They were really easy to make, deliciously fudgy and very well received by gluten-free people and gluten eaters alike.




Ingredients:
350g good quality dark chocolate (I used Green and Blacks Cooks chocolate)
235g butter
4 eggs
4 egg yolks
118 g caster sugar (or 1/2 cup)
2 tbsp cocoa powder, sifted
1 tsp vanilla extract

Optional for icing:
6oz unsalted butter
12oz icing sugar
splash of milk
a few drops of vanilla essence
cocoa to taste

or sifted icing sugar


Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas Mark 5 and set out cupcake cases in a tin

2.  Break the chocolate into pieces and put in a glass bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, making sure the water isn't touching the base of the bowl. Add the butter and stir until melted. Set aside to cool

3. Cream eggs, egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl with an electric whisk until pale and fluffy, but it won't ever be very pale and fluffy so just judge it on the change from before or when your arm hurts.

4. Gently fold in melted chocolate, cocoa powder and vanilla until fully mixed.

5. Spoon the batter into the cups. It's quite runny and I found the most effective way was to use a cup measure or just a cup and almost pour it in until its 2/3 full.

6. Bake for about 20 mins, until you can smell them and they spring back when you touch the top. Leave in the cupcake tins for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack.

Now for the topping. I really really really like icing so I bought the ingredients for icing and made it up however after trying a cupcake (it was misshapen, that's allowed) I decided that it may not need icing. Therefore I iced half and decorated the rest with icing sugar by cutting a stencil out of greaseproof paper and laying it over the cupcake and dusting icing sugar over the top. 

1. If making icing, cream the butter until smooth. Sift in the icing sugar a little bit at a time and mix, adding the milk about half way through. Add the vanilla and mix. Then sift in the cocoa until it's a good colour and it tastes how you want it to. 

2. Pipe using a wide star nozzle, either from the outside in - ending on a point at the top - or from the inside out keeping it flat to create a rose shape. 










- Ellie x 




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