Raspberry surprise chocolate cupcakes

These scrumptious cupcakes are both gluten free and vegan. To make a batch of 12 you will need the following:

1 cup almond meal
1 cup chick pea flour (besan)
1 cup soft brown sugar
1/4 of pure cacao powder
1/4 cup of oil
3/4 cup almond milk
1.5 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
2 heaped teaspoons of egg replacer powder
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract


Raspberry compote*
1 cup of fresh or frozen raspberries
2 tablespoons of soft brown sugar
 * alternatively you can use a good quality shop bought raspberry conserve or jam

Chocolate icing
1 avocado
1 teaspoon of cacao powder
1.5 teaspoon of icing sugar


I always start with making the raspberry compote as I like it to be cool when I add it to the cup cake mixture. Place the raspberries in a saucepan and turn on the heat, cook the raspberries until they have softened and the juices have released and started to evaporate. Add the sugar; I like the mixture to be a little tart as it contrasts well with the chocolate cake, but if you prefer you can increase the quantity of sugar added. Cook until the mixture is glossy and has a jam like consistency. Set aside to cool.

Pre heat a fan forced oven to 180C and line a cupcake tin with paper cases. In a large mixing bowl add all the dry ingredients and mix well with a spatula, taking care to break any lumps in the almond meal or brown sugar. In a separate bowl mix the almond milk, oil and vanilla extract and add to the dry ingredients. Mix to form a smooth batter, taking care not to over mix.

Fill the lined cup cake tin with the cake mixture, placing enough mixture to fill each mould half way. Add one teaspoon of the raspberry compote and then top with the remaining mixture until the cup cake moulds are 3/4 full. Place in the oven and cook for 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Once cooled you can either dust with cacao powder or icing sugar.

As a special treat, I often ice the cakes with a vegan icing. In the past I would have used vegan margarine, but now I use avocado instead which is so much healthier. However, you need to be careful to only ice the number of cakes you actually need as avocado tends to oxidise, not that you would notice with the cacao powder in it:)

To make the icing, finely mash one avocado (to frost about 4 cupcakes), so that there are no lumps and add the cacao powder and icing sugar and mix well.  Place the mixture in  a piping bag and pipe onto the cupcakes or use a palette knife to spread. Top with a fresh raspberry. Serve and enjoy.