Vanilla Cream Cupcakes {Gluten Free}
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So here’s a little something about me: I’m that person who answers far too quickly in cafes when I’m ordering a drink and they ask if I want whipped cream on top.
“Do you want whipped cre-”
“Yes please!”
I feel bad sometimes for interrupting them. But mostly I don’t because I’m too busy looking forward to my whipped cream. Er, I mean I’m looking forward to my delightful chilled beverage. That just happens to have whipped cream on top.
Is there anything that isn’t better with a little whipped cream?
And here’s another little something about me. No matter how many fancy flavoured cupcakes I make, there are times when all I want is a vanilla cupcake. With vanilla buttercream. And a few sprinkles. Because, well… sprinkles.
I’ve spent the past few years searching for the perfect gluten free vanilla cupcake recipe, trying gluten free recipes from books and blogs, and converting gluten-y recipes but there always seems to be something not quite right. Too tough, too dry, too crumbly… too “meh”. Aside from the necessary intense vanilla flavour, the texture is the most important part of a vanilla cupcake.
That’s where Sweetapolita comes in. I happened to be perusing (I’m using that word as a fancy term for “stalking”) her site and came across her recipe for Whipped Vanilla Dream Cupcakes, which have soft peak whipped cream folded into the batter at the end. Vanilla cupcake + whipped cream… there was no avoiding giving it a go.
Took a couple of tries and a few tweaks, but the end result was by far the best GF vanilla cupcake I’ve ever tasted. My panel of expert taste-testers (my parents, my bestie and her fiancé, quite possibly my biggest fans and most brutally honest critics) agreed. The whipped cream definitely makes a difference. How do I know this? It’s certainly not because I forgot to add the whipped cream to one batch. No, that’s definitely not the reason.
Ahem.
I could have topped these with more whipped cream, but I wanted the leftovers to last until the next day, so I chose to top the cupcakes with the next best thing to whipped cream – a ruffle-y swirl of vanilla Italian meringue buttercream. And the aforementioned sprinkles. White sprinkles, because somehow it seemed wrong to have coloured sprinkles on a perfect creamy white cupcake.
There aren’t any particularly fancy ingredients here, provided you have your gluten free flour situation sussed. For these I used white rice flour, brown rice flour, tapioca flour, potato flour and cornflour/starch, but you could give it a go with whatever gf flours you like.
I used both vanilla extract and paste, mixing the paste with the sugar to make vanilla-y sugar and adding the extract later, but if you only have one of these then by all means leave the other out and just double what you’ve got.
{I couldn’t decide between pink, white and blue cupcakes papers. So I used ’em all}
Vanilla Cream Cupcakes {Gluten Free}
Ingredients
For the cupcakes:
- 300 g gluten free flour*
- 1 teaspoon Xanthan gum
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 300 g caster sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
- 150 g unsalted butter
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 125 ml whipping cream
- 2 whole eggs
- 1 egg white
- 220 ml milk
For the Italian meringue buttercream:
- 225 g sugar
- ¼ cup water
- 5 egg whites at room temperature
- 55 g sugar
- 400 g unsalted butter at room temperature and cut into cubes
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Instructions
For the cupcakes:
- Preheat oven to 180°C. Line two standard size muffin tins with cupcake papers.
- Sift together the flour, xanthan gum, baking powder and salt. Whisk with a fork to combine.
- Place the sugar and vanilla bean paste in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until the vanilla seeds are evenly distributed through the sugar and it smells lovely. Add the butter and the vanilla extract to the sugar and mix on medium speed until light and fluffy. Don’t skimp on this, the lighter and fluffier the better.
- While the butter and sugar are beating, place the whipping cream in a small bowl and beat with a handheld electric mixer or a whisk until soft peaks form. Set this aside.
- Back to the butter and sugar; add in the whole eggs one at a time, and then the egg white, beating until combined after each addition. Scrape down the bowl and beat briefly again.
- With the mixer on low speed, alternately add in the flour mixture and milk, starting and ending with the flour and beating until combined between additions. Scrape down the bowl and then beat on medium speed for 1 -2 minutes until smooth.
- Using a large spoon or spatula, gently fold in the whipped cream.
- Spoon or scoop into the cupcake papers (I use an ice cream scoop). Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of a cupcake comes out clean. Leave to cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove and place on a cooling rack to cool completely before icing.
For the buttercream:
- Thoroughly clean the stainless steel bowl and whisk attachment for an electric mixer. I like to squirt some lemon juice (the bottled kind) into the bowl, place the whisk in the bowl and fill it with hot water. Leave it while you separate your eggs and get the other ingredients ready. This helps eliminate any grease that will stop your meringue whipping to its full potential and also warms up the bowl, which once again helps achieve volume in your egg whites. Dry the bowl and whisk thoroughly before using them.
- Place the 225g of sugar in a small saucepan and add the water. Stir gently with a spoon just until the sugar is dampened. Using a wet pastry brush, brush down any sugar crystals from the sides of the pan.
- Pop your egg whites in the mixer bowl and begin whisking on low speed.
- Place the pan with the sugar over a high heat and insert a sugar thermometer.
- Increase the speed of the mixer and beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. When they’re stiff, or when the syrup reaches around 240°F/115°C – whichever you notice first, pour the remaining 55g of sugar into the egg whites and continue beating.
- When the syrup reaches 245°F/118°C, remove from the heat and pour the syrup in a steady stream into the egg whites. Turn the mixer down to medium and walk away for a while. Read a book, have a chat to your cat, whatever tickles your fancy. The meringue needs to cool to room temperature before you add the butter.
- Once the bowl of the mixer is cool to the touch, switch the whisk attachment for the paddle attachment and with the mixer on its very lowest speed, begin adding the butter a few cubes at a time. When all the butter is added the mixture may look all kinds of disastrous, soupy and/or curdled, don’t panic! Just leave the beater on low speed and let it mix a bit longer. Eventually it will come together and look beautifully smooth and satiny. Add in the vanilla and mix again on low speed to combine.
- Fit the piping bag of your choice with a large star tip – I used a Wilton 2D tip to get the ruffly swirl. Fill the bag with icing, and play a brief drum solo on the bag to help remove any pesky air bubbles.
- Begin your swirl in the centre of the cupcake. To make the swirl ruffle, apply medium to heavy pressure on the bag, holding the bag 1cm or so above the surface of the cupcake and move the bag slowly in a spiral. The slower you move, the more ruffles you will get.
Notes
Voilà!
{Needs sprinkles!}
*
*
I’m a happy girl.
~Natalie
PS: If you play the piping slideshow backwards, it’s like the piping bag is sucking the buttercream back up. *om nom nom* (You know what they say about small minds….?)
Vanilla Cream Cupcakes {Gluten Free}
Ingredients
For the cupcakes:
- 300 g gluten free flour*
- 1 teaspoon Xanthan gum
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 300 g caster sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
- 150 g unsalted butter
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 125 ml whipping cream
- 2 whole eggs
- 1 egg white
- 220 ml milk
For the Italian meringue buttercream:
- 225 g sugar
- ¼ cup water
- 5 egg whites at room temperature
- 55 g sugar
- 400 g unsalted butter at room temperature and cut into cubes
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Instructions
For the cupcakes:
- Preheat oven to 180°C. Line two standard size muffin tins with cupcake papers.
- Sift together the flour, xanthan gum, baking powder and salt. Whisk with a fork to combine.
- Place the sugar and vanilla bean paste in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until the vanilla seeds are evenly distributed through the sugar and it smells lovely. Add the butter and the vanilla extract to the sugar and mix on medium speed until light and fluffy. Don’t skimp on this, the lighter and fluffier the better.
- While the butter and sugar are beating, place the whipping cream in a small bowl and beat with a handheld electric mixer or a whisk until soft peaks form. Set this aside.
- Back to the butter and sugar; add in the whole eggs one at a time, and then the egg white, beating until combined after each addition. Scrape down the bowl and beat briefly again.
- With the mixer on low speed, alternately add in the flour mixture and milk, starting and ending with the flour and beating until combined between additions. Scrape down the bowl and then beat on medium speed for 1 -2 minutes until smooth.
- Using a large spoon or spatula, gently fold in the whipped cream.
- Spoon or scoop into the cupcake papers (I use an ice cream scoop). Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of a cupcake comes out clean. Leave to cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove and place on a cooling rack to cool completely before icing.
For the buttercream:
- Thoroughly clean the stainless steel bowl and whisk attachment for an electric mixer. I like to squirt some lemon juice (the bottled kind) into the bowl, place the whisk in the bowl and fill it with hot water. Leave it while you separate your eggs and get the other ingredients ready. This helps eliminate any grease that will stop your meringue whipping to its full potential and also warms up the bowl, which once again helps achieve volume in your egg whites. Dry the bowl and whisk thoroughly before using them.
- Place the 225g of sugar in a small saucepan and add the water. Stir gently with a spoon just until the sugar is dampened. Using a wet pastry brush, brush down any sugar crystals from the sides of the pan.
- Pop your egg whites in the mixer bowl and begin whisking on low speed.
- Place the pan with the sugar over a high heat and insert a sugar thermometer.
- Increase the speed of the mixer and beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. When they’re stiff, or when the syrup reaches around 240°F/115°C – whichever you notice first, pour the remaining 55g of sugar into the egg whites and continue beating.
- When the syrup reaches 245°F/118°C, remove from the heat and pour the syrup in a steady stream into the egg whites. Turn the mixer down to medium and walk away for a while. Read a book, have a chat to your cat, whatever tickles your fancy. The meringue needs to cool to room temperature before you add the butter.
- Once the bowl of the mixer is cool to the touch, switch the whisk attachment for the paddle attachment and with the mixer on its very lowest speed, begin adding the butter a few cubes at a time. When all the butter is added the mixture may look all kinds of disastrous, soupy and/or curdled, don’t panic! Just leave the beater on low speed and let it mix a bit longer. Eventually it will come together and look beautifully smooth and satiny. Add in the vanilla and mix again on low speed to combine.
- Fit the piping bag of your choice with a large star tip – I used a Wilton 2D tip to get the ruffly swirl. Fill the bag with icing, and play a brief drum solo on the bag to help remove any pesky air bubbles.
- Begin your swirl in the centre of the cupcake. To make the swirl ruffle, apply medium to heavy pressure on the bag, holding the bag 1cm or so above the surface of the cupcake and move the bag slowly in a spiral. The slower you move, the more ruffles you will get.