I think I’ve mentioned this before but I really struggle with gluten free baking. Maybe some of it has been the recipes I’ve used, but trying to determine when something is done can be difficult in my opinion. It’s definitely gotten a little easier over the last few years but I’ve also been lucky to find some really good recipes as well. For a while anytime I made gluten free cupcakes for someone I just used a mix since it was easier but now that I’ve found this recipe it might be my new go-to.

I actually ran across this recipe on Instagram and the timing was perfect because a few days later I actually needed a gluten free cupcake recipe. I’ve gotten used to measuring ingredients and actually a lot of times prefer it over cup measurements since you might accidentally pack the flour in when scooping; whereas, measuring is the same every single time.

This recipe is pretty easy and doesn’t require anything fancy: just mix the dry ingredients together, then the wet ingredients, then combine. I actually doubled the recipe since I needed 24 cupcakes and found it doubled pretty easily. Once thoroughly mixed I used my big scoop (I think it’s the same size used in this recipe but I’m not 100% sure) and then popped them in the oven. Mine were perfectly done in 22 minutes and I was excited to see they rose a little since the last time I made my own chocolate gluten free cupcakes they were super flat and sad looking.

Note: I used King Arthur’s Gluten Free flour and just had Hershey’s Cocoa on hand, but I’d love to try this with the cocoa powder this author recommends. I know they used grapeseed oil, but I made mine with vegetable oil.

I always try to use any recommended frosting so I tried the Dark Chocolate Sour Cream Buttercream. I have seen several recipes using sour cream in the frosting but have never tried it before so I was kind of excited. These probably weren’t quite as dark chocolate as the recipe calls for since we only had Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Baking Chips on hand, but I will definitely try this again using a higher cocoa percentage. I normally prefer a standard chocolate buttercream using cocoa rather than melted chocolate because it’s not quite as rich but the sour cream added a nice tanginess so I thought this was really good.

The cake itself was a little denser than you’d find in a non gluten free recipe but it had a great flavor. Sometimes gluten free flour can also taste a little different as well but I didn’t seem to notice it as much with this recipe. I’m sure someone that never eats gluten free items might notice it’s a little different but it was a great cupcake and the frosting paired nicely with it.

Baking Ease	10
Time Spent	10
Taste	10
Visual	10

Recipe Used: Gluten Free Austrian