Healthy Gluten Free Vanilla Cupcakes
These Gluten Free Vanilla Cupcakes will restore your faith in gluten free baked goods. They’re so, so soft and fluffy, they’re moist and won’t crumble between your fingers like sand, and they taste just like all cupcakes should — rich and sweet with comforting tones of vanilla bean in every bite.
These aren’t just ANY cupcakes… these are HEALTHY Gluten Free Vanilla Cupcakes!
I first posted a recipe for Gluten Free Vanilla Cupcakes back in 2013. While they were decent, I will admit, they were pretty delicate (I was a newbie to gluten free baking back then!), and the recipe required too many steps and ingredients. Over the years, I always felt like I should revamp the recipe, and finally got down to it last week.
When I think of cupcakes, the first thing that pops into my head is a big tray full of the sweetest, cloud-like pillows of fluffy, cakey goodness topped with copious amounts of frosting.
Then I immediately flashback to my childhood where I’d pound back cupcake after cupcake, and then when I was in a food-/sugar-coma, ask myself why I felt so sick and uncomfortable. Well, DUH, old Jessica! It was all that white sugar, bleached flour, and artificial flavors!
Thankfully, we can say goodbye to all the typical nasty cupcake ingredients and say hello to the healthy ingredients used to make these Healthy Gluten Free Vanilla Cupcakes!
To make these cupcakes easier to make with a better texture, I made the following changes:
- Increased Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk, 1 cup to 1¼ cups
- Increased Double Acting Baking Powder, 1 tsp to 2 tsp
- Reduced Baking Soda, ½ tsp to ¼ tsp
- Reduced Granulated Erythritol, ¾ cup to ½ cup
- Replaced ½ cup Brown Rice Flour, ½ cup Quinoa Flour + ⅓ cup Almond Flour + ¼ cup Arrowroot Starch with 1 cup Sorghum Flour + 1 cup Oat Flour
- Replaced 3 tbs Applesauce + 3 tbs Oil with 1 cup Applesauce
- Omitted ½ tsp Xanthan Gum
- Omitted 2 tbs Ground Flaxseed
- Added 2 Egg Whites
- Added 1 tsp Stevia Extract
The result of these changes? DAMN DELICIOUS Gluten Free Vanilla Cupcakes! They’re sweet, buttery, moist, and fluffy, and packed with vanilla flavor. Best of all, you’d never know these are healthy and guilt-free with just 90 calories per cupcake!
Healthy Gluten-Free Vanilla Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 136g (1 cup) Sweet White Sorghum Flour
- 120g (1 cup) Oat Flour
- 2 tsp Double-Acting Baking Powder
- ¼ tsp Baking Soda
- ¼ tsp Salt
- 1¼ cups Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
- 246g (1 cup) Unsweetened Applesauce
- 96g (½ cup) Granulated Erythritol
- 2 Large Egg Whites
- 2 tsp Vanilla Paste (vanilla extract works too)
- 2 tsp Natural Butter Flavor
- 1 tsp Liquid Stevia Extract
- 1 tsp Almond Extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line your cupcake pans with 14 parchment paper or silicone liners (or you can spray the tins with cooking spray, but I think these will stick to traditional paper liners).
- In a small bowl, whisk together the sorghum flour, oat flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- In a stand mixer bowl with beater attachment, add the almond milk, applesauce, erythritol, egg whites, vanilla extract, butter flavor, stevia extract, and almond extract. Mix on low speed for about one minute.
- Turn off the mixer, dump in the dry ingredients, and return to low speed. Increase speed to medium and mix until almost completely smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix one last time.
- Scoop batter into prepared cupcake pans and bake for ~25 minutes, or until the surface of the cupcakes spring back when tapped. Transfer cupcakes to a wire cooling rack and let cool completely. Frost and serve!
Recipe Notes
Can you believe it?? 90-CALORIE CUPCAKES THAT TASTE LIKE 900-CALORIE CUPCAKES!
It’s not always about the nutrition label, calorie content, or grams of fat, though… it’s about the quality and nutritional value of the ingredients in the recipe. We should always be able to enjoy dessert without feeling guilty or undergoing a sugar crash.
These Gluten Free Vanilla Cupcakes are made with top notch, nutritious ingredients. It’s just a bonus that they’re sugar free and low fat too. This truly is a dessert with benefits! 🙂
Enjoy!
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With love and good eats,
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– Jess
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Indulge − no strings attached!
Isn’t it funny how people misunderstand what it is to be vegan? My roommates and I had people over for a dinner party and everything we made was vegan (not necessarily healthy) and our friends ate SO MUCH of everything because of that! haha
But great recipe! I am going to try this!
Love the site upgrade! Lovely recipe, too : )
You’re like a brilliant healthy dessert scientist!
LOVE!! Dying to know what icing you used — always on the hunt for good icing recipes. They look divine! 🙂
I actually just used Soyatoo Rice Whip with homemade sprinkles!
I’m guessing the nutritional value is without counting the icing? Still, it’s pretty amazing how you managed to “healthify” the recipe.
I’m considering going gluten-free for personal reasons but I always wonder about cake mixes – how do you get the flour ingredients right? What motivates you to choose brown rice flour, almond meal and quinoa flour? I’m a little confused about baking gluten-free, perhaps you could dedicate a blog post to it?
Yes, the nutrition label is for the cupcakes only. And I topped the cupcakes with Soyatoo Rice Whip and homemade sprinkles, which adds very little calories/fat/sugar.
As for the flour ingredients, I just based them off the Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World recipe. In my own recipes, I usually just use GF oat flour and brown rice flour because I feel like that combo tastes a lot like wheat flour in a baked good.
I would love to dedicate a blog post on baking GF, but I am not an expert and there are already so many great ones out there! Check out these sites:
1. http://simplygluten-free.com/new-to-gluten-free/
2. http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/p/how-to-go-g-free.html
These look beautiful! What a delicious recipe. Did you like the frosting and cupcake combo? I’ve never tried soyatoo rice whip…
I just used the Rice Whip because I was too lazy to make a frosting lol, but I do like how light and creamy it was. It isn’t packed with sugar so your teeth won’t ache and you can focus more on the cupcake’s flavor 🙂
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•246g (1 cup) Unsweetened Applesauce
Could this be replaced with oil? I prefer to use a fat.
I haven’t tried that substitute so I can’t be sure if that’ll work or not. I would recommend subbing a 1/2 cup (maximum) of the applesauce with oil 🙂
Gluten-free cupcakes? Omg, I love you. Thank you so much for sharing the recipe with us!!!
I don’t have a lot of experience baking gluten free treats but it’s always great to have a recipe on hand for my gluten free friends!