Rich Chocolate Coffee Cupcakes

Many peo­ple would as­sume that any­thing both ve­g­an AND gluten-free must be about as de­li­cious as card­board. Get ready for shock and awe, peo­ple, as we pre­sent a cup­cake recipe that will.. Blow. Your. Mind!

Cup­cake Mix:

1½ cups Gluten-Free Flour (we used Laucke Easy Bak­ers Spe­cial White Gluten-Free flour, avai­l­able in the health sec­tion of many su­per­mar­kets)
1 cup Cas­tor Su­gar
3 ta­ble­spoons Veg­etable Oil
1 ta­ble­spoon Egg Sub­sti­tute (eg. No Egg) mixed with 3 ta­ble­spoons Wa­ter
½ cup Nut­telex (or other ve­g­an mar­garine)
2 tea­spoons Vanil­la Ex­tract/Essence
¾ cup Soy Milk
½ cup Des­si­cat­ed Co­conut

Cho­co­late Cof­fee Ic­ing:

2½ cups Ic­ing Su­gar
¾ cup Nut­telex
3 tea­spoons Vanil­la Ex­tract/Essence
3 ta­ble­spoons hot Fair-trade Cof­fee
7 ta­ble­spoons Raw Ca­cao Pow­der OR 2 ta­ble­spoons Fair-trade Co­coa

SERVES: 20 cup­cakes  PREP: 30min  COOK­ING: 30min

Pre­pa­ra­tion

Pre­heat your oven to 180C.

Toast the co­conut in a fry pan over low heat, stir­ring reg­u­lar­ly un­til just gol­d­en.

Com­bine all in­gre­di­ents and mix us­ing an elec­tric mix­er un­til thor­ough­ly blend­ed and slight­ly fluf­fy.

Place cup­cake pa­pers in­to a cup­cake pan and drop a gener­ous, heaped ta­ble­spoon of mix­ture in­to each cup­cake pa­per so they are filled close to, but not quite to the top.

Bake in the oven for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 min­utes, or un­til gol­d­en and a skew­er comes out clean when poked in­to one of the cakes.

Al­low the cakes to cool for 15 min­utes and then trans­fer them to a wire rack and al­low to com­plete­ly cool be­fore ic­ing.

Ic­ing the Cup­cakes

Com­bine all of the ic­ing in­gre­di­ents in a bowl and beat with an elec­tric mix­er un­til the ic­ing is com­plete­ly blend­ed and looks shiny.

Fit a pip­ing bag with a wide star-shaped noz­zle and fill the bag with ic­ing.

In one mo­tion, pipe the ic­ing on­to a cup­cake, start­ing from the out­side spi­ral­ing in, and then pipe up and around, with an ex­tra squirt at the end to form a tip.

Store in an airtight con­tain­er un­til ready to en­joy.

Mis­ter Nice Guy Cup­cakes

If you don’t feel like mak­ing your own cup­cakes and you live in Mel­bourne, try Mis­ter Nice Guy Ve­g­an Cup­cakes. They have an as­tound­ing range of de­li­cious flavours and use on­ly or­gan­ic, fair-trade in­gre­di­ents. For more in­for­ma­tion you can read our ar­ti­cle about them or vis­it www.mis­ter­n­iceguy.com.au