Only 10 minutes of prep, 8 ingredients and 1 bowl needed to make the Paleo + Vegan Cupcakes! Made with a blend of almond and tapioca sweetened with coconut sugar and flavoured with vanilla
Comin’ at you today with another reader request in the form of these paleo + vegan cupcakes! Yum.
A few weeks ago I got a comment on these chocolate muffins asking for a vanilla cupcake version and now here we are. Funnily enough those muffins were made after someone else asked for a chocolate muffins recipe after I shared my lemon poppy seed muffins a few months back.
But I digress…Back to the recipe at hand!
What’s great about these paleo + vegan cupcakes?
- They’re egg free – you don’t even need any vegan egg substitutes.
- They’re refined sugar free – made with coconut sugar which makes for a soft, caramel-y type flavour. (More on this below).
- They’re easy to make – all prepped in one bowl in about 10 minutes.
- They’re insanely delicious – soft in texture with an almost caramel flavour that’s good enough to eat as is or with your favourite frosting
So let’s get to it!
How to Make These Paleo + Vegan Cupcakes
As I mentioned above you only need about 10 minutes of prep and 8 ingredients to make these cupcakes. To sum it all up:
- Whisk together your dry ingredients.
- Stir in the wet ingredients.
- Line or grease your cupcake moulds.
- Fill & bake!
Once you’re done it’s just a matter of frosting and that’s it!
I chose to top these off with a vegan whipped cream and some sliced strawberries for a strawberries and cream kind of feel. You can used coconut whipped cream to keep it paleo or you can even go in another direction and opt for a chocolate frosting like this sweet potato one.
Final Tips & F.A.Q.’s
Can I use another type of flour?
- You could probably use another nut flour in place of the almond (hazelnut, cashew etc.) but I have not tested these muffins with any other flour combination so I’m afraid I can’t advise on any substitutes here. Coconut flour will not work without making a lot of other changes.
Is baking powder paleo?
- Technically no. Baking powder is usually contains corn starch which makes it not technically paleo friendly. Fortunately, it’s really easy to make your own baking powder at home by mixing together a small amount of arrowroot starch, baking soda and cream of tartar. I include the amounts needed in the recipe below if you’re interested in making it.
- That being said – if you’re not bothered about following a strict paleo diet this recipe only needs two teaspoons so it’s not much at all.
Almond Meal or Almond Flour?
- As long as your weigh your amounts than I can say with confidence that either will work. You need a total of 240 grams of meal/flour.
- Though almond flour and almond meal are made from essentially the same thing (ground almond) there are a couple of key differenced between the two:
- Almond flour is typically made with blanched (skinless) almonds into a more fine flour.
- Almond meal is usually made with un blanched (skin on) almond into a more coarse flour.
The difference here is important because you may end up with different amounts when measuring with cups. In my own personal experience I find that I usually need to add more almond meal to recipes calling for almond flour when relying on cups alone. Using a scale usually solves this problem.
If you use almond flour the final texture of your cupcakes might be more grainy. If that’s a concern for you all you need to do is blend your batter together and that should fix it!
And that’s it – hope you enjoy!
If you ever have any recipes in mind that you’d like to see here please let me know! As fun as it is to come up with recipes to make I’d much rather share recipes that I know you guys want to see. Baked goods, breakfast, low FODMAP – whatever you want to see just let me know!
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Paleo + Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes
Only 10 minutes of prep, 8 ingredients and 1 bowl needed to make the Paleo + Vegan Cupcakes! Made with a blend of almond and tapioca sweetened with coconut sugar and flavoured with vanilla
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups almond flour (240 g)
- 1/2 cup tapioca flour or arrowroot starch (55 g)
- 3/4 cup coconut sugar or white cane sugar (white sugar is not paleo) (135 g)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup melted coconut oil (60 ml)
- 1/2 cup almond milk, room temperature (or another milk sub of your (120 ml) choice)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (10 ml)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F/190°C and grease or line a 12 cup muffin tin with paper liners. You'll only need 9 cup greased/lined.
- Whisk together the flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a large mixing bowl until well combined.
- Stir in the coconut oil, almond milk, and vanilla extract until no lumps remain and a thick batter forms.
- Pour the batter evenly into each muffin cup about 3/4 of the way full. Place in the oven and bake for 20-22 minutes until the tops have goldened and the insides are cooked. Let cool in the tin for at least 10 minutes in the pan before enjoying.
Notes
Almond Meal or Almond Flour?
- As long as your weigh your amounts than I can say with confidence that either will work. You need a total of 240 grams of meal/flour.
- If you use almond flour the final texture of your cupcakes might be more grainy. If that’s a concern for you all you need to do is blend your batter together and that should fix it!
Paleo Baking Powder
- Make your own paleo baking powder by mixing: 1/2 teaspoon baking soda + 1/2 teaspoon arrowroot starch + 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
Coconut Sugar Sub
- The coconut sugar imparts a strong, caramel-like flavour on these cupcakes. If you don't need these cupcakes to be paleo you can use regular white sugar in place of the coconut sugar. This will make for a more vanilla-like cupcake.
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Mei says
If we want to use regular milk instead because we want to make the cupcakes simply because it’s gluten and egg free, would that affect the cupcake a lot?
Sarah Nevins says
That’s no problem! Dairy milk will work just the same!
Donna says
HELP! So I love the taste of these, but every time I bake them they cave in on themselves instead of having a nice cupcake dome, can you give me any hints on what I may be doing wrong? I live at high altitude and we are using white sugar instead of coconut bc I cant find coconut, we primarily want to use your recipe bc my daughter has FPIES and cant have oats, wheat, rice or EGG. But I dont know what I am doing wrong when I make these. Any tips? I have tried to make these twice and both times I end up with little bowl shaped cupcakes (lol) but they taste fine.
Sarah Nevins says
Hi Donna!
I think you’re right – that does sound like a common high altitude baking problem. Low air pressure in high elevation places causes air bubbles in batters/baked goods to rise at a fast rate in the oven. When things rise too fast they also end up deflating just as fast.
In this recipe we rely mostly on the baking powder as our leavening agent. It works by releasing carbon dioxide gas in the batter which create little pockets of air that are responsible for letting the cupcake rise. I suspect that 2 teaspoons might be too much for baking in HA places – 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons is probably a better range to work with in this recipe for you. Maybe try 1 teaspoon next time. If you feel like your cupcakes don’t rise enough, you can always increase it to 1 1/4 or 1 1/2 the next time.
One thing that I often see people who live in high altitude places do is increase their oven temperature by about 15-25°F. Liquids in your recipe will evaporate faster in HA places. If you bake things at a higher temperature you’ll also help your baked goods set faster as well. Since hotter things bake faster you’ll also need to adjust the bake time – usually by about 20-30%. So (in theory) putting all that together you would need to bake these cupcakes at 400°F for about 15-18 minutes.
I would just make those adjustments for the time being. You don’t want to alter too many things at once because then it will be hard to know what does/doesn’t help. If you still have the same problem after changing these things I might recommend adding a chia seed or a flax seed egg to the batter. (In case you aren’t familiar with what they are you can read more about them here: https://www.asaucykitchen.com/flax-eggs/ ) My thinking is that adding a chia/flax egg will help provide a little more moisture and structure needed to prevent these from sinking.
I hope that helps! If it doesn’t I’ll keep racking my brain because I’m sure there’s something we can do to make it work!
Stephanie Nunez says
Hello There,
What kind of frosting do you use for these cupcakes?
Can you use a banana or applesauce in place of sugar?
Sarah Nevins says
Hi Stephanie! For a chocolate frosting you might like this sweet potato chocolate frosting found here: https://www.asaucykitchen.com/paleo-vegan-chocolate-frosting/
Or for a vanilla cream cheese-like frosting you might like the cashew frosting from this carrot cake recipe: https://www.asaucykitchen.com/paleo-carrot-cake-with-a-cashew-cream-frosting/
As for replacing the sugar with applesauce or a banana I’m afraid I’m not sure how well those would work as replacements without testing it first.
Sravanthi says
I have two kids, one my Mother in law’s son who is allergic to almonds and the other one who is my own is allergic to gluten and we are vegetarians, so no eggs. Now, whenever I see a good cookie or muffin recipe it either has eggs or almonds. Please suggest some recipes for me. I just need a couple of recipes to kill that sweet craving and occasionally make some cakes on special occasions.
Sarah Nevins says
Hi there! Here are a few gluten, nut, vegan sweets you guys might be able to enjoy:
Donuts: https://www.asaucykitchen.com/baked-gluten-free-donuts/ <---read the notes below the recipe for instructions on how to make it egg free/dairy free Chickpea Brownies: https://www.asaucykitchen.com/chickpea-brownies/ <---these brownies are one of my most popular recipes Chocolate Chip Cookies: https://www.asaucykitchen.com/gluten-free-chocolate-chip-cookies/ <---these can be made egg free Coconut Flour Cake https://www.asaucykitchen.com/paleo-cake/
Sunflower Seed Chocolate Chip Cookies: https://www.asaucykitchen.com/sunflower-seed-paleo-chocolate-chip-cookies/
Apple Crumble Bars https://www.asaucykitchen.com/gluten-free-apple-crumble-bars/
Banana Mocha Ice Cream (you can leave out the coffee to make it more kid friendly): https://www.asaucykitchen.com/mocha-nice-cream/
Flourless Pumpkin Brownies: https://www.asaucykitchen.com/flourless-pumpkin-brownies/ <----You can use a nut seed butter instead of almond butter to make it nut free
Brette says
These turned out SO tasty and moist!! I’ve recently discovered a wheat and egg allergy and it’s been extremely hard to find yummy recipes that I can make that don’t taste flavorless or like cardboard. My fiancé and roommate both loved them also and didn’t even realize they weren’t “normal” cupcakes. Thank you for sharing this wonderful recipe!
Sarah Nevins says
Hi Brette! I’m so happy to hear that! Thanks so much for coming back to let me know what you thought of the cupcakes 🙂
Natalie says
YUM! These cupcakes look so delicious!
Sarah Nevins says
Thanks Natalie!