Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes with Coconut Icing

Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes with Coconut Icing

These gluten free Chocolate Cupcakes with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting are a perfect example of how easy it is to use gluten free Bisquick to convert some of your old baked goods into gluten free desserts.  It’s been several months now that I’ve been experimenting with gluten free Bisquick in my cake batters and the results so far have been spectacular.  What I've been doing is looking over my old recipes in search of the ones that contain flour plus a leavening agent like baking powder or soda.  In those recipes I’ve been replacing the flour with gluten free Bisquick and leaving out the baking powder, baking soda, and salt from the original recipe since they're already included in the baking mix.  So far it has worked out well.  It actually makes things simpler.  My original chocolate cupcake recipe called for 1 ¼ cups of flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp baking powder and 1/8 tsp salt.  I simply replaced all four ingredients with 1 ¼ cups of gluten free Bisquick and the end result was hard to distinguish from the original.  It’s about time that gluten free baking was actually simpler than the original method.  Give this principle a try and let me know how it’s working out for you. 

Ingredients 

·         1 ¼ cups of gluten free Bisquick 

·         1 cup sugar

·         1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa, sifted 

·         2 eggs

·         ½ cup warm water

·         ¼ cup vegetable oil

·         ½ cup Greek yogurt

·         1 tsp instant espresso powder

·         1/8 tsp cinnamon

·         1 tsp vanilla

·         FOR THE ICING:

·         6 oz low fat cream cheese (3/4 block)  

·         4 tbsp softened butter (½ stick)

·         ¾ cup confectioner’s sugar

·         1 tsp vanilla extract

·         1 cup sweetened shredded coconut

Video Tutorial 
 

Instructions

1.      Preheat the oven to 350°F or 175 °C and line your cupcake tins with 14 paper liners.

2.       In a medium bowl stir together the gluten free Bisquick, sugar, and sifted cocoa and set it aside.

3.      In a larger bowl whisk together the eggs, water, vegetable oil, Greek yogurt, espresso powder, cinnamon, and vanilla until well blended.

4.      Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and whisk until you have a smooth lump free batter. 

5.      Divide the batter among the 14 liners filling each about 2/3 full.  Fill any empty cupcake wells with ½ inch of water. 

6.      Bake for 20-24 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan for 5 minutes then remove them and let them cool completely before icing them.

7.      For the icing mix the butter, cream cheese and vanilla together until smooth then add the confectioner’s sugar and mix until it’s completely smooth and lump free. You could use a hand mixer but it’s not necessary if the butter and cream cheese are well softened.

8.      Once the cupcakes are completely cooled, frost them with a dollop of icing, and sprinkle on the coconut.

 Chocolate Cupcakes - Chocolate Sprinkles - No Gluten

      While I was frosting the cupcakes I was faced with some pretty loud protests from my daughter.  You see even though she likes coconut, I should have known that coconut is a terrible idea on cupcakes.  So rather than argue with her I just left the coconut off a few and opted for chocolate sprinkles instead.  That's the beauty cupcakes.  You're not tied to just one version like you are with a whole cake.  So you can customize them in any way you'd like to  keep everyone happy.