Gluten Free Vanilla Bean Raspberry and Lemon Cupcakes

Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Raspberry Preserves, Lemon Butter Cream and Almonds

Gluten Free

The holidays are upon us and while my sights should be set on more festive treats, the taste buds want what the taste buds want. Recently I had a little getaway in lake Delton, Wisconsin with a couple of childhood friends of mine. On our last day we ate at "The Cheese Factory" The food was awesome and for dessert I had a slice of what looked to me like a European dessert from my childhood, which they called Princess Cake.

Well it wasn't actually Princess cake. Princess cake is a Swedish cake and has marzipan and pastry cream layers. What it was though, inspired me for this cupcake, so although it's not particularly Thanksgivingish or Christmassy, it still goes pretty well with everything else that will be on the table.. Also if you want to make these with Gluten, simply substitute the ingredients in bold, for 2 cups of all purpose flour.

~ 24 cupcakes 20 minutes 350 degrees

Gluten Free Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

1 stick butter (room temp)

1 1/2 cups sugar

4 eggs (room temp)

2 cups Gluten free flour (I prefer Gluten Free Pantry Brand)

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1 teaspoon potato flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup milk

1 vanilla bean

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 Mix butter in a mixer until smooth and creamy. Add sugar and continue to mix for 3 minutes. During this time, take the dry ingredients and whisk them together in a separate bowl. Set aside. In a measuring cup,

measure out milk and vanilla extract.








Slice your vanilla bean down the center with a sharp knife. Use the knife to scrape the vanilla bean seeds in to the cup with your milk and extract. Set aside.

Add eggs one at a time to your butter and sugar mixture and mix until smooth and fluffy. Next add 1/3 of the contents of your dry bowl and continue to mix. Now 1/3 of you wet ingredients. Continue to alternate the two until all is combined. Be careful not to over mix the batter when baking with gluten free. The batter can become very gummy.

Spoon in to cupcake lines filling each about 3/4 full and bake.

Frosting and Garnish

Raspberry preserves

crushed almonds

3 sticks of butter softened

4 cups powdered sugar

1 lemon

Zest your lemon in to a mixing bowl. If you don't have a zest they can be purchased rather cheaply at your grocery store. Make sure you also have a juicer of some kind. Add butter to your zest and mix until smooth. Juice the lemon and set aside. Add 1 cup of powdered sugar to your lemon butter and mix until combined. Add juice from lemon. Because this is frosting, make sure there are no seed parts going in to the mix. These will be very noticeable in frosting and unpleasant. Pour the juice in very slowly so that the sediment is left at the bottom of the cup and easy to discard. Add the rest of your sugar one cup at a time. Make sure to scrape your bowl.

Using a regular knife, spread preserves on the top of each cupcake. You don't want it to be very thick, try to keep it even and avoid the liners so they aren't super sticky when your guests try to unwrap them. 

Now if you want to decorate them as I have, a rose is a very simple design that is made with a 2D frosting tip. Literally you can watch a 30 second YouTube video and be making roses right away. 

I made a rose in the center of each cupcake, and then using a 22 frosting tip, I went around the edge of the cupcake for a finished look. Top with almond chunks.

Enjoy!