Chocolate Almond Cupcakes with Chocolate Orange Frosting

I'm currently working as a personal chef for a wonderful family that is gluten-free and dairy (milk)-free. The other day, for a family birthday, they asked me to bake a special treat. and I chose these Chocolate Almond Cupcakes with Orange Frosting that I adapted from an Italian Jewish recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks,  Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food.There are myriad gluten-free cooking and baking blogs and cookbooks out there these days, using all sorts of alternative flours like tapioca, coconut, teff, garbanzo, quinoa, rice, and potato starch in various combinations. While I'm no longer eating gluten-free, I have a lot of friends who do, and some of my go-to recipe blogs are Gluten-free Goddess and Gluten-Free Girl. It's surprising how close the texture of gluten-free baked goods can come to a regular wheat cake crumb.

Commercial gluten-free flour blends and baking mixes are available from companies like Bob's Red Mill, King Arthur Flour, and Cherrybrook Kitchen. However, the best results often come when you create your own blends of flours depending on the type of cake crumb you're looking for, and they can get quite expensive. Also, a lot of gluten-free, dairy-free mixes and recipes also eliminate eggs, which isn't dietarily necessary for many of us. Eggs are a wonderful binder and leavening agent. Without some sort of protein like eggs or wheat gluten, there's nothing to hold flours together, so a binder like xanthum gum (also very expensive!) has to be added to keep the ingredients from falling apart.

So what's a girl to do? I think a lot of gluten-free bakers forget that Jews have been baking without wheat for thousands of years at Passover. The Sephardic peoples of the Middle East and Mediterranean region make delicious baked goods from almond flour, eggs, and sugar that have a wonderful rich flavor, nutritional value, fluffy texture, and are extremely easy to make. They're also relatively economical compared with other gluten-free ingredients.

These Chocolate Almond Cupcakes have a tender crumb interspersed with gooey chocolate. If you use good quality cocoa powder, the frosting is like a rich chocolate ganache. They'll please anyone, gluten-free or not. Since they're made from almonds and chocolate, they're relatively rich, so I like to make them small, but you can also bake them in standard-sized muffin cups and increase the cooking time slightly. They'll keep for a couple of days in an air-tight container.

For about 18 mini cupcakes, you will need:

  • 1 cup almond flour, lightly packed (also called almond meal - Bob's Red Mill's is widely available)
  • 3 large eggs, separated
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons rum, amaretto, Grand Marnier, triple sec, or other flavored liquor
  • 7 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips, about 1 heaping cupful
  • 2 tablespoons water

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F, with the rack in the middle. Line a mini muffin pan with baking cups. (I made my own cups with small squares of parchment pressed into the muffin pan.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the almond flour, egg yolks, sugar, rum, chocolate, and water. Pulse until well combined, and the chocolate chips are broken into small pieces. Place the mixture into a large mixing bowl.

In a separate, very clean bowl, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Gently fold the egg whites into the almond and chocolate mixture until just combined. It's ok if there are a few small streaks of egg white: It's better to undermix than overmix.

Using a tablespoon, fill the baking cups to just under their rims. Bake for 20-25 minutes, rotating the pans after about 12 minutes. When done, the cakes will be moist and springy to the touch, and a toothpick will come out clean of batter. (Melted chocolate is ok.) Wait until cakes are room temperature before frosting.

CHOCOLATE ORANGE FROSTING

For enough frosting to generously frost 18 mini cupcakes, you will need:

  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • 2 tablespoons good quality cocoa powder (I like Guittard or Valrhona for a rich, dark chocolate color and flavor. If you use a Tollhouse or Hershey's quality powder, you'll get a milk chocolate flavor.)
  • 3 tablespoons butter, room temperature (If you're milk/dairy free, you can use Earth Balance or another butter substitute.)
  • 4 tablespoons milk (Any kind of milk is fine, including soy, almond, and coconut.)
  • 1 teaspoon orange extract (You can use any flavor extract you like - almond, vanilla, raspberry, and coconut are also nice with chocolate.)

Directions:

Using a stand or hand mixer, cream the butter, milk, and extract together. Gradually sift in the sugar and cocoa mixture, and mix until smooth.

Girl with Spoondairy-free, dessert, gluten-free