These Easy Vanilla Strawberry Cupcakes are made with all-natural ingredients and can be whipped up in a flash for any special occasion or whenever you desire a sweet treat. They are super moist, with just the right amount of natural sweetness and a lovely strawberry jam filling. Simply put, these cupcakes are divine! They are also gluten-free, dairy-free and refined sugar-free!

With Valentine’s Day AND Pure Sprinkles’ 2nd Birthday just around the corner, I wanted to share a recipe close to my heart to celebrate these special occasions. Bringing together two of my favourite recipes, my Very Vanilla Cake and Simple Strawberry Sauce, that I shared with you last year for Pure Sprinkles 1st Birthday. Creating a whole new recipe that is something truly magical, with a flavour combination that is simply sublime.

I love the pairing of vanilla and strawberries. They are the perfect match. The sweet and slightly floral notes from the vanilla paired with sweet and slightly tart strawberries have a beautiful contrast of flavours yet meld together so seamlessly that it creates a flavour combination that makes your tastebuds smile.

It is also my go-to recipe for making treats for friends and family. I have made these cupcakes countless times and have always received praise for how yummy they are and how they can’t believe they are gluten-free. More proof in the pudding that gluten-free can be as tasty if not tastier than baking with regular flour or refined sugars. The best part is it’s healthier, and you can feel good about eating it.

So what’s to love about these Easy Vanilla Strawberry Cupcakes?

• Gluten-free

• Dairy-free

• Simple to make

• Natural wholesome ingredients

• Perfect for special occasions, birthdays, anniversaries, or parties!

I couldn’t resist decorating the cupcakes with some luscious Strawberry Buttercream. Its lovely soft pink hue ties in perfectly with Valentine’s Day and Pure Sprinkles’ Birthday! It was just too fitting and looked so pretty! I added some Strawberry Syrup (thanks to my Simple Strawberry Sauce) to the buttercream, which amped up the strawberry flavour. However, you can dress up these cupcakes any way you like with buttercream (as picturized), frosting, glaze, or whipped cream, or enjoy them just as they are!

I poured a lot of love into creating these cupcakes, and hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

Happy Valentine’s Day, lovely friends! & Happy 2^nd Birthday, Pure Sprinkles!!

Sprinkles recipe fun facts:

• COCONUT FLOUR – has high fibre content, is packed with nutrients and promotes good digestive health.
• COCONUT OIL – has anti-viral, anti-fungal, and antibacterial properties and can also boost energy levels and metabolic rate as well. 
• HONEY – contains many healthy essential minerals such as sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium.

Let’s go and make some delicious Easy Vanilla Strawberry Cupcakes to celebrate these special occasions! 

Do you also love cupcakes? How did you enjoy these cupcakes? Let me know in the comments below. 

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Easy Vanilla Strawberry Cupcakes

These Easy Vanilla Strawberry Cupcakes are made with all-natural ingredients and are a breeze to make for any special occasion or any time you want a sweet treat. They are gluten-free, dairy-free and refined sugar-free!

Author Priscilla Sekaran

Ingredients

Ingredients

Easy Vanilla Strawberry Cupcakes

Dry

• ½ cup coconut flour
• ½ tsp baking soda
• pinch of sea salt

Wet

• 4 eggs
• ⅓ cup coconut oil, melted (room temperature)
• ½ cup liquid raw honey* (or maple syrup)
• ¼ cup almond milk (or any plant-based milk of choice)
• 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract

Decorations

• sprinkles (optional, highly recommended)

Equipment

• whisk
• 2 x 6 cavity muffin tin (or silicone molds)
• measuring spoons + cups
• small and large metal bowls
• baking cups
• metal spoons
• cooking spray (I used coconut oil cooking spray, but you can use any cooking spray of choice)
• toothpicks
• apple corer
• paring knife
• silicone spatula

Instructions

Preparation

• Line the muffin tin with baking cups and lightly spray the muffin tin with coconut oil. Set aside.

Vanilla Strawberry Cupcakes

• In a small bowl combine all dry ingredients, coconut flour, baking soda, sea salt, mix well. Set aside.
• In a large bowl add the wet ingredients, honey, almond milk, coconut oil, vanilla, and eggs. Whisk together until smooth. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and whisk together until you have a nice smooth batter.
• Preheat oven to 350°F.
• Let the batter sit for 5 minutes. This is an important step; please do not skip it as it helps the cupcakes to rise and become more moist. Mix together one more time.
• Fill the muffin tin with batter, about 3/4 filled, approximately 2 tbsp of batter, and gently shake it so that the batter spreads evenly. Place in the oven to bake for 17-18 minutes or until golden brown. Be sure to do the toothpick test to make sure it is fully baked.
• Once done, allow the cupcakes to cool to room temperature, then transfer to a plate.

NOTE: This recipe uses my Simple Strawberry Sauce recipe as the filling for the cupcakes. So please hop over to the recipe here to get the full details and proceed with the next steps. If you don't want to add the filling, then skip over to the next section.

• How to add Strawberry Jam Filling
• APPLE CORER METHOD: Press the apple corer into the centre of the cupcake gently. Do not press hard, as you don't want to go too deep. Lightly twist as you pull the corer out. The center cupcake will lift up with the corer, leaving a lovely hole in your cupcake.
• PARING KNIFE METHOD: Carefully cut a hole in the middle of the cupcake. Do not press hard, as you don't want to go too deep. Remove the centre and set aside.
• Take a ¼ measuring spoon and gently press into the hole to make a nice, even hole to add the filling.
• Set aside the cake removed from the centre to seal the cupcake after adding the Strawberry Jam.
• Spoon a teaspoon of Strawberry Jam into the cupcakes and press down again with the measuring spoon to ensure it fills nicely. Then place the cake that we removed earlier and press it back into the hole to seal the cake.

Decorating

• You can decorate these cupcakes with buttercream, frosting, glaze, whipped cream, the choice is entirely yours! I highly recommend adding sprinkles as it really adds a fun element to the cupcakes and makes them look so pretty!

Notes

YIELDS 12 cupcakes

* Feel free to adjust the sweetness to your liking.

STORAGE: Stores in the fridge for a week in an air-tight container or in the freezer in a freezer-safe container or zip lock bag for up to a month.

If the cupcakes are decorated, they will keep up to 3-4 days in the fridge in an air-tight container or the freezer in a freezer-safe container or zip-lock bag for up to a month.

NOTE: These cupcakes don't rise as high as all-purpose flour-based cakes, but let me assure you they will give you the same satisfaction.

DECORATING: These cupcakes can be decorated in a multitude of ways, you can add buttercream frosting (as pictured), icing, glaze or whipped cream! The possibilities are endless. 

BATCH BAKING: Want more cupcakes? No problem! Just double up the recipe. 

Enjoy!

The post Easy Vanilla Strawberry Cupcakes {gluten-free, dairy-free, refined sugar-free} first appeared on Pure Sprinkles.

Hello dear friends,
A warm welcome to Pure Sprinkles! So excited to be launching the blog! This blog is very dear to me. It is something I have wanted to do for a long time and have come across many hurdles along the way that made this journey longer than expected. To reach this place now, where my vision has finally become a reality makes me feel very proud.

I was thinking about what would be the best way to kick off the blog launch and thought is there really anything better than yummy cupcakes? Topped with sprinkles to commemorate the blog name + launch. Pretty hard to beat. Choosing which cupcake recipe to feature first was a daunting task as there are so many to choose from but felt like I had to follow my heart and go with one of my all-time favourites – Carrot Cupcakes.

Oh, Carrot Cupcakes what can I say about you, except you have a special place in my heart. It is just one of those desserts that give me a warm fuzzy feeling when thinking about it. The warm spices of cinnamon, allspice, and ginger paired with carrots and soft raisins are just a neat little package of yumminess that makes the heart and tummy happy. What really makes it a divine treat is the icing – that velvety goat cheese icing, it’s just a dream.

I remember as a kid my parents used to surprise me with Carrot Cupcakes from the grocery store Metro, they were amazing! It had the perfect balance of the sweet and warm spices, topped with a luscious cream cheese frosting. It was incredible. I always felt it was impossible to recreate a gluten-free version with that same magic until these cupcakes came to fruition. It took years of trial and error to get the recipe just right. The icing was a different story. I could not figure out a way to recreate it until one day it finally dawned on me, why not try goat cheese? You may ask, ‘Wait a minute goat cheese?? I thought you eat dairy-free?!’ And the answer is yes, I definitely eat dairy-free, but I do have a little dairy from time to time and even at that I only have goat cheese. When I changed my diet the only dairy item I was allowed to eat was goat cheese, so I took advantage of it and created a few dishes including these cupcakes.

With all my talking about goat cheese do not fear dairy-free friends, I also have a glaze recipe for you! The only thing to note with the glaze is I recommend topping the cupcakes just before you are ready to eat them as they do soak into the cupcakes making them sweeter. Also, you don’t have to add icing to these cupcakes as they are sweet enough on their own and can be enjoyed as muffins too!

Sprinkles recipe fun facts:

• REFINED SUGAR-FREE – only the use of raw honey instead of white sugar.
• CARROTS – rich in vitamins, minerals, and fibre.
• GOAT CHEESE – instead of cream cheese. more calcium and easier to digest than cow’s milk.
• COCONUT FLOUR – easy to bake with but also has more nutritional benefits than regular white flour, high in fibre and easier to digest.

Think that’s enough talking about these cupcakes, let’s get baking!

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Sprinkles Carrot Cupcakes

This gluten-free carrot cupcake recipe is the perfect balance of sweet and warming spices.

Course Dessert

Author Priscilla Sekaran

Ingredients

Cupcakes

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup carrots, shredded
• ¼ cup coconut oil, melted
• ⅓ cup raw liquid honey (or maple syrup)
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• ¼ cup coconut flour
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp ginger
• ¼ tsp allspice
• ¼-⅛ cup raisins (optional)

Goat Cheese Icing

• 125 g soft goat cheese (approximately half a bar)
• 1-2 tbsp raw honey
• splash of vanilla extract

Glaze (Dairy-Free)

• 1 cup refined sugar-free powdered sugar (or icing sugar)
• 1-2 tbsp almond milk (or any dairy-free milk of choice)
• splash of vanilla extract

Topping

• sprinkles (optional but highly recommended)

Equipment

• muffin tin + baking cups
• bowls
• whisk
• silicone spatula
• measuring spoons and cups
• spoons

Instructions

Cupcakes

• Preheat oven to 350°F.
• Line the baking tray with baking cups and lightly oil with coconut oil or any other oil of choice.
• Combine wet ingredients, eggs, coconut oil, honey, and vanilla in a medium-large bowl.
• In a separate bowl combine dry ingredients, coconut flour, baking soda, sea salt, cinnamon, ginger, and allspice.
• Sprinkle the dry ingredients over the wet and whisk together until well combined. The batter will be loose, don’t worry that is right the consistency.
• Gently fold carrots and raisins into the batter until everything is evenly distributed. Let the batter sit for a couple of minutes.
• Fill the baking cups ¾ of the way with the batter. Shake the tin gently, a small trick to make the cupcakes bake evenly.
• Bake for 25 minutes. A great way to test if it is done is by placing a toothpick in the middle of the cupcake, if it comes out clean it’s done! If you get a little crumble of batter, it’s not ready just place it back in the oven for a few more minutes. We now how ourselves a scrumptious batch of Carrot Cupcakes! 

Goat Cheese Frosting

• Add goat cheese into a mini food processor. Add a splash of the vanilla and 1 tbsp of honey and then pulse for about 1-2 minutes. 
• Turn off and scrape the sides of the container, add the remaining 1 tbsp of honey and then pulse again until you get a nice creamy consistency. Your icing is ready! 

Glaze (Dairy-Free)

• Add the icing sugar into a bowl, slowly add the almond milk and combine. Just remember once you add too much liquid it is hard to thicken again, so add a little a time as you may not need a lot. Mix until you get the desired consistency. 

Notes

* MAKES 6-8 CUPCAKES

 

CUPCAKES: These cupcakes are great on their own but if you want to take it a step further, ice them up with some luscious goat cheese frosting or drizzle with a dairy-free glaze. Store in the fridge for 1-2 days in an air-tight container. Muffins without frosting or glaze will keep in the fridge for up to 1 week in an air-tight container. Will keep in the freezer with frosting for up to a month, as muffins for 1-2 months in zip-lock bags or an air-tight container.

 

GOAT CHEESE FROSTING: This frosting recipe is great on cupcakes and cakes. Keep sealed in an air-tight container for 1-2 days.

 

GLAZE (DAIRY FREE): This glaze recipe is great on cupcakes, cakes, cookies, and doughnuts. Will keep in the fridge for 2-3 days in an air-tight container.

Hope you enjoy these carrot cupcakes as much as I do.

Enjoy!

The post Sprinkles Carrot Cupcakes {gluten-free, dairy-free, refined sugar-free} first appeared on Pure Sprinkles.