Have you heard of Iron Cupcake? It’s a world-wide event that promotes baking and eating while raising funds for local causes. The Iron Cupcake Madison group has held 6 events to “riff on cupcakes, promote enjoyment of unusual flavors, and raise some money for the plethora of deserving non-profits.” Madison, being the crunchy granola kind of town that we are, has been lucky to have a gluten-free baker at most of those events – Nikki Burns from GoodBye Gluten. She’s not only been participating, she’s been winning for best taste! Congrats to Nikki.
Of course, since she’s gotten great feedback, I decided it was time for me to step up and join the fun. I know I’ve already mentioned that I’m not a huge cake fan. I’m even less of a fruity cake fan. And, this month’s theme was late summer fruit. Eep. Facing my demons, eh? It’s all about facing my demons. (Well, that and it made it ridiculously easy for me not to eat all these cupcakes I was making.)
Two test batches later, I’d come up with a recipe that was not only gluten-free, but also vegan. As one tester stated, “that’s the impossible, you know.” Muahaha. Not so impossible after all.
The token full size cupcakes
Gluten-free Vegan Cranberry Red Velvet Cupcakes
Dry Ingredients
80 g. sorghum flour
70 g. sweet rice flour
70 g. white rice flour
1 T. cocoa powder
150 g. sugar (palm sugar would probably work, too)
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
Wet Ingredients
3/4 cup warm cranberry puree (Cook approximately 2 cups frozen cranberries until soft. Puree in blender. Make extra if you want to make the frosting below.)
2 T. flax seeds
1/4 cup almond milk
1.5 T. red food coloring
1/2 cup neutral oil (sunflower, safflower, grapeseed)
1 t. vanilla
Preheat oven to 350°. Prepare mini cupcake cups. (I was making tiny cupcakes and got about 44 out of each batch. You could make them slightly fuller and make fewer.)
Whisk together all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Set aside.
In a small bowl or large measuring cup, stir warm cranberries and flax seed together until flax seeds begin to gel. Add the rest of the wet ingredients. Stir well.
Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients, and working quickly, fill cupcake liners 2/3 – 3/4 full.
Bake for approximately 25 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean and tops are firm to the touch. Remove from pans and cool completely.
Cranberry Buttercream Frosting
100 g. organic palm shortening
100 g. Earth Balance soy-free spread
200 g. powdered sugar or powdered palm sugar
2 heaping tablespoons cranberry puree (cooled completely)
Beat all ingredients together with an electric mixer.
Just a few of the 160 mini cupcakes
I didn’t win anything, but I did have fun. This month’s event is all about kid bakers with a Halloween theme. The kiddo is already dreaming up his mad scientist creation!
Want to see more spectacular cranberry recipes? Check out this month’s SOS Challenge.
The Mommy Bowl 
Cant believe you did not win . Those cupcakes look amazing.
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Wow! These look absolutely wonderful. I love your photograph showing ooh so many of the teeny tiny cupcakes. It’s rather like a ‘One Hundred and One Dalmations’ shot. 🙂
Love your inclusing of cranberries, just enough to convince me they aren’t entirely wicked.
Thank you for this recipe. I look forward to trying it.
Thank you. Yes, it was a bit like 101 dalmations, for sure. 🙂
Gluten free and vegan, that is amazing. I can’t get over that you made 160 of them look that nice. Must have been a lot of work.
It took less time than I imagined it would. It’s a lot of work, but totally doable.
Okay wow, now that was an amazing feat Deanna! Its so rare to see cake-like goodies that are egg-free and gluten-free! I’m hoping to trial grain-free and egg-free soon. They look yummy!
I haven’t tackled grain free and egg free cake. I’ve done cookies without a problem. Cake on the other hand…. Mucho challenging, I think.
Those are stunningly gorgeous! I love cranberries, a-yup, but have never heard of a cranberry cupcake, quite genius!
Good morning! Just wanted to let you know that you’ve been tagged with the Liebster Blog Award… a special recognition for up-and-coming blogs with fewer than 200 followers. I think your blog is great! You can check out my post here: http://raiasrecipes.blogspot.com/2011/10/liebster-blog-award.html
Ohh…I love the idea of Cranberry Frosting. I’m going to have to try this! Thanks for the inspiration!
I’m thinking these might be part of our Thanksgiving feast this year! I’m vegan, my son is gf, and one of the “extra kids” (the children of friends who spend holidays with us) is allergic to dairy and soy. I’m usually a non-planner for such things but I’m getting better and I really think this will make an appearance. Beautiful!!
Hello! Thanks for the kind words 🙂
It was nice to have another gluten-free baker at the last event! Hope to see you at the Caramel Event!
You’re welcome. Since we just did the kiddo event, I think I’m out for the caramel event. Sheesh, I’m tired of mass baking at the moment! But, maybe after the holidays. 🙂
Haha. It gets easier as you go. I’ve done all of the events (and one in Milwaukee- 500 cupcakes!) and each one I learn a new trick to pop out mass quantities of mini cupcakes. Hope the kiddo event went well. We decided a nap was in order and didn’t set an alarm. Oops.
Sadly, no one showed up for the kiddo event. Lots o’ work, little payoff. But, the kiddo had fun, which is what’s most important. And, yah, I’m sure there are lots of tricks. I’d so way rather do Iron cookie, though. Mmmm….cookies. 🙂
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