Gluten Free & Vegan Chocolate Orange Cupcakes are light and fluffy with amazingly smooth and decadent chocolate orange frosting. You won’t believe they’re gluten free and vegan!
Creating vegan and gluten free cupcakes
Following the success of my Vegan Chocolate Orange Loaf Cake, I decided to expand my vegan baking repertoire. I went back to the recipe by Kate from Veggie Desserts for my inspiration and from there decided to adapt it to attempt to make Gluten Free and Vegan Chocolate Orange Cupcakes.
I’ve used the word attempt, because that was really what it was. I had attempted to make gluten free cupcakes before and they hadn’t turned out exactly as I wanted.
The texture was too crumbly and the taste was different to the original recipe. So when I decided to adapt this recipe to be gluten free, I wasn’t holding out too much hope.
Kitchen experiments don’t always end in success!
Experimenting in the kitchen isn’t always going to be a success. I think having a failure every so often makes each success more satisfying.
I find that sweet recipes are often the ones that need more tweaking until they are just right. This is because you can’t add things during the cooking process like you can with a lot of savoury recipes!
When these cupcakes turned out perfectly the after the first attempt, I was so chuffed. It did help that I was starting with a tried and tested base recipe though!
Where I had gone wrong with my previous gluten free cupcakes attempt was that I had simply swapped the normal flour for gluten free flour.
It was my coeliac friend, Zoe who recommended adding some xanthan gum which acts as a binding agent which the gluten free flour lacks. It worked perfectly and the result was a gluten free and vegan cupcake that had the texture of any other cupcake I have eaten – success!
Vegan frosting is amazing
My favourite part of these cupcakes is the frosting. I am not usually a fan of buttercream because to me I can taste the butter.
Chocolate buttercream is usually my preferred buttercream but I have never tasted buttercream as good as this! It is so smooth and creamy which I think has to be down to the dairy free margarine. It also had such an appealing glossy shine to it which I loved.
Eat the cupcakes quickly!
Before I rave on about how great I think these cupcakes are, there is one downside. As with other gluten free cake, these are really best eaten on the day they have been baked.
You can eat them the day after too, but you will notice even only one day later they will have lost some of their fluffiness. A trick Zoe has learnt over the years is to keep some cupcakes unfrosted and when you’re ready to eat them give them a few seconds in the microwave to freshen them up before allowing to cool and frosting.
You could also freeze the cupcakes before they are frosted as a way to prolong them a little longer if you don’t think you’ll manage eating all ten in two days.
Other recipes you might like
- Vegan Chocolate Hazelnut Cupcakes
- Vegan Vanilla & Raspberry Jam Cupcakes
- Vegan Oreo Cupcakes
- Chocolate Orange Tray Bake
- Small Batch Chocolate Cupcakes
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Gluten Free & Vegan Chocolate Orange Cupcakes
Gluten Free & Vegan Chocolate Orange Cupcakes are light and fluffy with amazingly smooth and decadent chocolate orange frosting. You won't believe they're gluten free and vegan!
Ingredients
For the cupcakes
- 140 ml soy milk
- 75 g non dairy margarine
- 1½ tbsp golden syrup
- ½ tsp coffee granules
- 140 g gluten free plain flour
- 1 ¼ tsp baking powder
- 90 g caster sugar
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 2 tbsp orange juice
- 1 orange zested
- ¼ tsp xanthan gum
For the frosting
- 75 g non dairy margarine
- 200 g icing sugar
- 4 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 tbsp soy milk
- 1 tbsp orange juice
Instructions
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Preheat the oven to 160ºC (fan assisted, 180°C non fan) and line a cupcake tin with 10 cases
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Zest the orange before juicing it . Whisk the orange juice and soy milk together and set aside
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In a pan over a medium heat, gently melt the margarine, coffee and golden syrup. Once melted take off the heat and allow to cool slightly
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Sift the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, bicarbonate of soda and xatham gum together in a bowl before adding the milk and margarine mixtures. Stir well until the batter is smooth
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Divide the mixture between the cupcake cases and bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes minutes or until a cocktail stick comes out clean when poked into a cake
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Allow to cool for a few minutes in the tin before turning out onto a wire rack and leaving to cool completely
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Once completely cooled, make the frosting
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Add the margarine and icing sugar to the mixer and beat until combined
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Add the soy milk and orange juice and beat until smooth and fluffy
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Spoon the frosting into a piping bag with a nozzle and pipe onto each cupcake. Decorate however you like
Recipe Notes
Nutritional information is given as a guide only and my vary.
Alison's Allspice says
I love that you added orange to these cupcakes! Such a fun and different twist for a chocolate cupcake!
Cat says
Thank you, I can’t get enough of chocolate and orange together!x
Kat (The Baking Explorer) says
They look yummy! Makes me wonder why I’ve not tried making vegan cupcakes yet!
Cat says
Thanks 🙂 You really should!
Jenny Paulin says
I have seen photos of these on IG and FB I think Cat and I have to say that chocolate frosting looks sooooo good! Chocolate and orange is always a good thing in my book in terms of cakes ,so these would be popular in my house.
thank you for linking them to #Bakeoftheweek x
Cat says
The frosting is so silky smooth and glossy, I’m pretty sure it’s my favourite chocolate frosting to date x
Kirsty Hijacked By Twins says
Chocolate orange is one of my favourite flavour combination and being dairy free makes them ideal for me! x #bakeoftheweek
Cat says
Chocolate orange has to be one of the best 🙂 x
Julie says
These delightful cupcakes look so tempting. Commenting as BritMums Baking round-up Editor. 🙂
Monika Dabrowski says
Love the combination of chocolate and orange and these cupcakes are super gorgeous! Thanks for bringing them to #CookBlogShare
Curly says
Thank you 🙂
Mandy says
These look really lovely and it was so interesting to read about your experiments and what you discovered
Curly says
Thanks Mandy 🙂
Midge @ Peachicks' Bakery says
OMG YUM!!! Pinned for later!
Curly says
Thanks 🙂
Rita says
Hi can the margarine be subbed for normal butter? Can the flour and milk be normal instead of vegan? Can I eliminate the golden syrup and zanthan gum,?
And also!! Can this recipe be baked in a 7” tin?
Really trying to find a good eggless recipe that I can turn to for both chocolate and vanilla by changing up the cocoa and orange
Curly says
Hi Rita, this recipe might be a better option as it uses standard flour already-https://www.curlyscooking.co.uk/vegan-chocolate-orange-cake/. You can definitely use dairy butter instead of dairy free. Is there a reason you can’t/don’t want to use the golden syrup? It acts as the binder in this recipe so I wouldn’t recommend leaving it out.
I haven’t made this cake into a vanilla cake but you could. You could definitely bake it in one or two 7″ tin – obviously the baking time would vary.