Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with a Chocolate Coconut Glaze

This week, I attended a mommy meet up/birthday party for a momma friend of mine. I wanted to bring a sweet treat for everyone to enjoy and at the request of the birthday girl, it needed to be something chocolate with a little extra chocolate! With such a specific request, I had the perfect recipe in mind! I decided I would make these delicious, moist, chocolate lovers lovers dream- Vegan Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with a Coconut Chocolate Glaze! This recipe was adapted by Chocolate Covered Katie’s Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes.

These cupcakes have such great texture by themselves but with the addition of the coconut chocolate glaze, it really is the icing on the cake- pun intended! I also added mini chocolate chips to the batter because, WHY NOT! 

Now most of my recipes use gluten-free flours but this one uses spelt flour instead. This ancient grain is a more easily digestible flour, if you could tolerate wheat products, that is. I haven’t tried this recipe using a 1:1 gluten free flour or oat flour, but I imagine it will be an easy swap if you wanted to avoid the gluten.

This recipe is great for those who are vegan and are looking for a tasty cupcake! There are no eggs or dairy used, instead a little apple sauce or dairy free yogurt with a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar, which will make a consistency similar to buttermilk.

The originally recipe called for white refined sugar so I swapped that out for coconut sugar, since it is one of my favorite natural sweeteners to use. It is lower on the glycemic index, so you won’t get that crazy blood sugar spike like you would after eating traditional white sugar.

For the Coconut Chocolate Glaze I used 1/2 cup of organic coconut milk ( primarily the creamy thick part) and 1 cup of dairy free semi-sweet chocolate chips (Enjoy Life brand) and 1/2 c of powdered sugar.

These cupcakes are great for any occasion! If you end up making them, please share how they turned out in the comment section below!

Recipe:

Cupcake Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup filtered water
• 1/4 cup organic unsweetened applesauce or your favorite dairy free yogurt
• 1/4 cup melted unflavored coconut oil or avocado oil
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 tsp white or Apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup organic spelt flour
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tbsp additional cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup of coconut sugar
• 1/2 cup mini diary free chocolate chips
• 1/2 tsp + 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda

Icing Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup canned coconut milk/cream (if using milk, use primarily the creamy thick part.
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (dairy free)
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Instructions:

Cupcakes:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a cupcake pan with liners.
2. In a large bowl, whisk first 5 ingredients. Do not forget the vinegar. Let sit at least 10 minutes
3. Sift all remaining ingredients in a separate bowl while you wait.
4. Pour wet ingredients into dry, stir just until evenly mixed, and smooth into liners. Only fill up 2/3 of the way at most, because they rise a lot and you don’t want them to burst and then sink in the middle.
5. Bake 20 minutes on the center rack. Let cool.
6. These taste even better the next day, and the liners will peel off easily after a day.

Icing:

1. In a small sauce pan, warm coconut milk/cream until melted.
2. Turn off heat and add in chocolate chips, stir until melted and well combined.
3. Remove from the stove and let it sit until completely cool.
4. Add in powdered sugar and thoroughly combine with a hand mixer.
5. Continue to let cook and firm up more if necessary.
6. Spoon the glaze on top of your cupcakes and top with sprinkles if desired ( I used chocolate 365 brand).
7. Enjoy!