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Gluten Free Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes (Nut Free)

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Even if you have food allergies, you can still indulge a little! These Gluten Free Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes are top 8 allergen free and delicious. They’re vegan, nut free, peanut free, soy free, and fit many special diets.

image collage of gluten free vegan vanilla cupcakes with pink frosting

I’m back this week with another great cupcake recipe! I took a little time off last week to have hip surgery (thanks to torn labrum from hip impingement), but I was able to get a bunch of recipes made up ahead of time so I can keep posting while I’m stuck not moving around very much. Planning ahead saved my bacon!

Our Vegan Vanilla Cupcake recipe is one of One of my older recipes, Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes, has always been a fan favorite, but it was made with wheat, so I decided to make a gluten free version that’s also vegan and nut free so everyone can have it!

photo of vegan gluten free cupcakes topped with pink frosting and cup in half

Quite a while ago, I had made a gluten free vanilla cupcake recipe, but decided instead of just redoing that old one, I needed to make a completely new recipe to make sure that it works great. So these new gluten free cupcakes are better than my old recipe and easier to make. Yay!

Baking notes for our vegan cupcakes

Since our gluten free and vegan cupcakes are whole grain and don’t have eggs, they are a bit more dense and don’t peak as much as regular cupcakes do. But these are still moist and delicious!

gluten free vegan cupcake with pink frosting on a teal napkin

These cupcakes sink slightly in the middle. You can reduce or prevent this by dividing the batter into 14 cupcakes rather than 12. I didn’t mind that these sank slightly since it will be covered in frosting and no one will see it 🙂

When making our gluten free cupcakes, make sure that you don’t skip the ground flaxseed. We use ground flaxseed as an egg substitute regularly in our baking, and it works great. It acts as a binder for baked goods since there are no eggs or gluten to bind the ingredients together. Don’t skip the ground flaxseed!

vegan gluten free vanilla cupcake on a cupcake paper topped with pink vegan frosting

Gluten Free Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes (Nut Free)

Even if you have food allergies, you can still indulge a little! These Gluten Free Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes are top 8 allergen free and delicious
Top 8 allergen free, gluten free, vegan, nut free; Free of: soy, eggs, dairy, peanuts, tree nuts
5 from 5 votes
Print Pin Rate
Course: Cakes, Desserts
Cuisine: American
Keyword: allergy friendly cupcakes, gluten free vanilla cupcakes, vegan cupcakes
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 21 minutes
Total Time: 36 minutes
Servings: 12 cupcakes
Calories: 141kcal

Ingredients

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin with muffin papers or silicone muffin liners and set aside. Both silicone liners and paper liners work for this recipe, just make sure not to leave the cupcakes in the silicone muffin liners too long if you choose silicone. 
  • In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, ground flaxseed, salt, and baking powder. 
  • Add to the flour mixture the rice milk, oil, and vanilla and stir to evenly mix to form the batter. 
  • Divide the batter evenly between the 12 lined muffin cups. 
  • Bake at 350 degrees for 20-24 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. I found that it takes slightly longer (just a few minutes) to bake cupcakes in a stoneware pan than a metal pan.
  • Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes before removing the cupcakes from the pan to cool on a wire rack. 
  • Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before frosting. Store in an airtight container for about 3-4 days. Enjoy!

Notes

These cupcakes sink slightly in the middle. You can reduce or prevent this by dividing the batter into 14 cupcakes rather than 12 (please see recipe notes in the blog post). 
Nutrition info is calculated for just the cupcake without the frosting. The frosting nutrition info is calculated in the frosting recipe card. 

Nutrition

Calories: 141kcal | Carbohydrates: 21g | Protein: 0g | Fat: 6g | Saturated Fat: 0g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0g | Monounsaturated Fat: 0g | Trans Fat: 0g | Cholesterol: 0mg | Sodium: 100mg | Potassium: 94mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 16g | Vitamin A: 0IU | Vitamin C: 0mg | Calcium: 37mg | Iron: 0.3mg
Did you make this recipe?Share a photo on Instagram and tag us @TheFitCookie!

Vegan frosting recipe notes

Here’s the Vegan Vanilla Buttercream frosting recipe below. If you store this vegan frosting recipe in a container, it does separate a little bit in the container. If you make this frosting ahead of time, just make sure to beat it again with a hand mixer before topping your cupcakes with it.

overhead photo of vegan vanilla cupcakes with star tip pink frosting decoration with white pearl sprinkles

I like to add a few drops of dairy-free imitation butter flavor to my frosting just to add a bit of butter flavor, but this is completely optional and tastes fine without it. I also like using the non-dairy butter-flavored palm oil shortening when I can find it for homemade frosting, it’s delicious!

If you’d like to add color to your dairy free frosting, there are great natural food colors available now. I use the McCormick natural food color powder since it’s available in my local stores, but you can use whichever brand you prefer. We used the pink McCormick natural color for this frosting, and it turned out beautiful!

Vegan Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Vegan, gluten free, nut free. Free of: soy, eggs, dairy, peanuts, tree nuts 
This recipe makes about 1 cup of frosting
4.72 from 7 votes
Print Pin Rate
Course: Desserts
Cuisine: American
Keyword: dairy free frosting, vegan vanilla buttercream, vegan vanilla frosting
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes
Servings: 12 servings
Calories: 113kcal

Ingredients

Instructions

  • With a hand mixer or stand mixer, beat the palm oil until softened. 
  • Add in slowly the powdered sugar, rice milk, and vanilla. Beat until mixed thoroughly and smooth. 
  • If you need, you can adjust the thickness to your liking by adding a little bit of rice milk (1 teaspoon at a time) to make it less thick, or powdered sugar (1 Tablespoon at a time) to make it more thick.  
  • Optional: add some natural food color powder to add color. I use McCormick natural food color powders, start out with a small amount and add more until you reach the color you like.

Notes

*If you don’t want to use palm oil, you can use completely softened dairy free butter and omit imitation butter flavor. You may need to add a bit more powdered sugar to get the stiffness/structure in the frosting that you prefer.

Nutrition

Calories: 113kcal | Carbohydrates: 15g | Protein: 0g | Fat: 6g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Cholesterol: 0mg | Sodium: 1mg | Sugar: 14g
Did you make this recipe?Share a photo on Instagram and tag us @TheFitCookie!

16 thoughts on “Gluten Free Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes (Nut Free)”

  1. I just made these cupcakes at 5,000 feet (And adjusted them), and although the batter was delicious, the actual cupcakes came out a bit gummy. Is this your experience? Is there a better way for me to prepare the ingredients so they ‘cake up’ a bit more? Thank you!

    Reply
    • Hi Audrey! What altitude adjustments did you make for these? I’m at about 4500 feet elevation here and when I created the recipe, so it should work good for high altitude without adjustments. My son baked a batch of these today for homemade cake pops and they turned out good. Let me know if you try this again if you try it without the altitude adjustments and keep me posted with how they turn out 🙂

      Reply
      • Thank you for getting back to me! I did two batches again without altitude adjustment (one with sorghum and one with brown rice flour). The brown rice ones sank heavily in the middle, but the sorghum did not. Have you had this experience? Neither batch of cupcakes rose much and still the sorghum had less obvious sinks in the middle. They are no longer super chewy or anything, but I’m still unsure how to make them rise. Thank you for your help!

        Reply
        • I’ve noticed that some of my cupcakes do sink a bit in the middle since they don’t have eggs. Maybe add a bit more baking powder to them (like an additional 1/4 teaspoon) to see if that helps? I also noticed that they will sink more if they are filled more full, so I’d fill them only about 2/3 full rather than 3/4 full. I haven’t noticed a difference between the sorghum and the brown rice flour with the cupcakes sinking, but I’m not sure that I’ve tried this particular recipe with the brown rice flour yet, most of my other recipes work interchangeably between those flours so I’ll have to try it and check.

          Reply

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