Baker's Review Wednesday 38: Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes

These gluten free cupcakes are absolutely delicious!!  You cannot even tell that they're gluten free.  My mom will eat them when my dad gets them from the freezer, because they're so good.  My dad says they're the best chocolate cupcakes he's ever had!  You should most definitely try these cupcakes if you need to eat gluten free.

I've made these cupcakes with both peanut butter and chocolate frosting.  My dad doesn't really like peanut butter that much, so for him I mostly do chocolate frosting.

(I made these cupcakes for the Under the Lilacs sale.)

Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes

1 cup water

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup butter (2 sticks)

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon gluten free vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups gluten free flour (We use Mama's Almond Blend)

2 teaspoons xantham gum

1 1/2 teaspoons gluten free baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

In a medium saucepan with burner on medium, melt the butter with cocoa powder and water, stir until smooth and silky.  In a mixing bowl, on low speed, beat together the sugar and butter cocoa powder mixture for 3-5 minutes until the mixture is cool and smooth.

Add the eggs, beating in between each addition.  Then add the vanilla and sour cream.  Beat on low to combine.

In a separate mixing bowl whisk together the flour, xantham gum, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Whisk to really aerate the ingredients and get them almost sifted.  Add 1/2 of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and incorporate on low speed, ten seconds at a time, scraping down the sides of bowl.  Then add the other half and repeat until the batter is smooth.

Scoop the batter into each liner 2/3 full.  With a spoon coated with nonstick spray, smooth the top of each cupcake so the batter is more smoothed out and the cupcake is not so lumpy.  Bake in 350 degree oven until inserted toothpick comes out clean.  (The original recipe doesn't say a time, so I think I start at about 18 minutes, check, and bake longer as needed.  I don't remember how long I baked them for.)

Cool the cupcakes completely before frosting.

Yield 24 cupcakes.

**Just a tip, for those of you who have used Picnik before and  need a photo editing website again . . . there's a site called PicMonkey and it basically has the same stuff as Picnik did, so that's what I think  I'll start using to edit my photo's.  From the little I've seen just editing the photo above, it has more choices than Picnik and I think I like it even better . . . like that film frame above . . . LOVE it!!**

Did you bake this week?  Link up your recipe and review below!!

Have a great day!!