These gluten free chocolate cupcakes are the perfect indulgent treat. They are a healthier alternative to the regular chocolate cupcakes. Almond flour makes these cupcakes gluten free and their natural fat and nutty flavor adds depth, flavor and richness to the final product, while lending extra moisture to the baked good.
After gluten free brownies, I am here with a gluten free chocolate cupcake recipe. The recipe is adapted from Foolproof Living here, and its a keeper. I did replace some of the almond flour with oat flour. Also, I used regular sugar as maple syrup is more difficult to get and super expensive in India, though I am sure maple syrup would be a great addition too. Since I used regular sugar and did reduce the amount, I compensated it with a little extra liquid to keep the cupcakes moist.
I would love to try these with dates for the sweetness and some orange zest the next time I try them. Will update when I do 🙂
Store bought Vs Homemade Almond Flour
Since almond flour is super expensive, I have started making almond flour at home. It does require certain pre preparation. You need to blanch the almonds, remove the peel, let the almonds dry and then dry grind them on pulse to get a fine powder. Once you sift the powder, the fine flour you get is almond flour that you can use to bake cakes and cookies.
The reason why I use oat flour in both the gluten free brownies recipe and these gluten free chocolate cupcakes is so that I can fine grind any leftover unsifted almond flour. This way all of the blanched almonds is used in a single recipe.
You could of course make these gluten free chocolate cupcakes with store bought almond flour, but then what’s the fun in that. Also storage for nut flours is critical to avoid rancidity. You need to keep your almond flour either in the refrigerator or freezer, and since I am always struggling with refrigerator space, making one recipe portion almond flour at home, helps me avoid storing store bought almond flour problems.
Store bought almond flour is of course finer but having a powerful and reliable grinder or food processor makes it easy to get fine almond flour results at home too. I use my Hamilton Beach JMG for it, and although slightly expensive its one of my most used kitchen equipment. In collaboration with them I also made a video for making these cupcakes, and you can watch it here on my instagram.
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