1-2-3 Chocolate Cupcakes (Vegan, Gluten-Free, Corn-Free)

By FreeEats

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If you’ve ever craved chocolate I’m going to tell you a secret. You can whip up seductively rich chocolate cupcakes in a few minutes.  No fancy techniques and minimal skill required.

I know what you’re thinking.  You’ve heard that before.  But if you stick with me, you will see.  People will be beg you to make these cupcakes for them.

This is what I call a dump and mix recipe.  All the ingredients get tossed into one bowl, mix away and then bake.

Don’t believe me?  I dare you to give them a try. I promise that this will become your go-to recipe for chocolate cupcakes.

Notes: This recipe was adapted from one I used to bake back in my college days called Wacky Cake.  It was perfect at the time because it requires few ingredients, no mixer, and best of all, no eggs!  I never seemed to have eggs or butter on hand (back when I ate dairy) so this recipe was a lifesaver. Apparently I haven’t grown up because I still make it far too often!

Rich Chocolate Cupcakes

  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (for best results, use this one)
  • 1/2 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum or guar gum (I use a corn-free variety of xanthan gum from Authentic Foods)
  • 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar (if you are vegan, make sure to use vegan sugar)
  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
  • 1/2 cup oil of choice (canola, melted coconut oil, safflower or light tasting olive oil will all work)
  • 1 cup brewed coffee or water

Makes approximately 10 cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard 12 cup muffin pan with paper liners. Set aside.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, place all ingredients and mix on medium speed for 1-2 minutes (start your mixer slowly so that you don’t slosh the ingredients).  You can also mix this batter by hand.

Divide the batter evenly into the muffin papers so that they are two-thirds full.  I use a spring-loaded ice cream/batter scoop for this task.

Bake for 14-16 minutes or until the cupcakes spring back a bit when gently pressed with a finger.

Cool, frost and serve.  Once cooled these freeze well and can be thawed at room temperature as needed.

Creamy Chocolate-Mocha Frosting

  • 1 1/4 cups coconut milk (unsweetened)
  • 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
  • 1- 10 ounce bag semi-sweet chocolate chips (I use Enjoy Life Mini Chips which is also vegan)
  • 2 tablespoons coconut oil (or butter if you eat dairy)

—>  In a saucepan, combine all ingredients.

—>  Cook over low, stirring frequently, until the chocolate is melted.  Continue stirring until it comes together into a smooth, shiny mixture.

—>  Remove from heat and transfer to a glass bowl.

—>  Cool frosting in the fridge, stirring thoroughly every 15 minutes.  Chill until thick enough to spread.  Approximately 1 1/2 hours.

28 thoughts on “1-2-3 Chocolate Cupcakes (Vegan, Gluten-Free, Corn-Free)”

  1. It’s a good thing I don’t live close to you….I would be 10 lbs heavier for sure. I’m going to try these – I’m all about dump and stir!

    • I knew that you of all people would love the dump and stir thing!! Since you don’t have to be gluten-free, feel free to substitute an equal amount of all-purpose flour and drop the xanthan gum. The only other tip is don’t overmix. We don’t have to worry about that with gluten-free batters. Enjoy!

  4. Thanks! My little boy was begging me today for cupcakes! Once again you have came to our rescue. I honestly don’t know what we would’ve done without your blog these past few months. Thanks to you I am not afraid to try to make things. I made chocolate candies today for the kids who were begging for Reese’s peanut butter cups..only nut free, soy free, corn free and gluten free oh, and of course Caesin free, Lol! Thanks for showing me that it is possible!

    • Thank you for your comment! I wish you could see the smile it put on my face. I KNOW how wonderful it feels to delight a child with food allergies with a special treat. My son always says, “and I can even eat it!” That’s why I keep posting. Your chocolate candies sound like they were a hit! Did you use sunflower butter? Take care, Terris

  6. Just made it tonight since all of my flour has arrived, and they are wonderful!! I am so excited to try more recipes! Thank you so much!

  7. Hi! This was a fantastic and easy recipe. I do have one question as I am still new to GF V baking. They came out great and light at first but then got heavy and dense as they cooled and sat at room temp. Is that normal? I did have to add about 1/4 more water as my mixture didn’t seem to come out thin enough. Either way they still taste great, just curious if there were any other hints or tricks to try and keep them light. Thanks again for the great recipe!

    • Hi Lisa, I’m so happy that you got a chance to try the recipe. I love troubleshooting results, so I’m happy you shared your outcome! Regarding the consistency of the batter, I think my note about it being fairly thin was misleading so I plan to change that in the recipe. Sometimes gf cake and brownie batters seem thick and almost gelatinous before baking due to the xanthan gum. In fact, they can be tough to spread with a spatula. This cupcake recipe yields a batter that is thin (relative to that) but fairly similar to a regular wheat cake batter. I hope that all makes sense! Anyways, I’m thinking that if you try again, don’t add additional water and just try it as written. I have never had them turn dense and heavy upon cooling. Since there are no eggs in the recipe, that extra water may have been too much for the amount of baking soda and leaded to a bit of collapsing of the internal structure when cooling. Also, if you do ever want to add more water to a batter, make sure to increase the baking time because slightly underdone cupcakes or muffins can collapse upon cooling. Good luck and thank you for taking the time to comment!

  8. Hi! I have just taken mine out of the oven, and their little puffy pillow tops of joy have sunk into old man wrinkly tops! I didn’t have any GF Plain flour, only self raising so I used that and omitted the baking soda. I only had normal vinegar, so I used that instead of Apple Cider vinegar. Everything else was exactly the same, and I used Macadamia oil. Once I cover them up with some fluffy icing they’ll look great, but just wondering what I might have done wrong, if my substitutions didn’t stuff things up? Thanks :)

    • Update – they’re all stretchy gooey chewy, like a caramel bar? They don’t feel cooked at all. I’ve popped them back into the oven for another 8 minutes & will try again. My normal, non-gf baking skills are awesome. GF baking is doing my head in!!!
      Help :(

      • I just answered your other comment and then I saw this one. It definitely sounds like the problem was leavening, because this recipe won’t work with baking powder. Unfortunately I don’t think extra oven time will solve this problem. :( I know how frustrating baking failures can be, so that is why I can only guarantee results with the ingredients listed. Even different gf flour mixes behave differently from one another. One other thing to check when you do use a ready made flour mix is if it has xanthan gum already added. If you add additional xanthan gum on top of the gum in the mix things can get very gummy and gelatinous.

    • Hi there,
      Hmmm, a few things could be causing those results. The most likely is your use of the self-rising flour. Self-rising flour is typically made with baking powder not baking soda. This vegan cupcake recipe is specifically designed to work with baking soda. In fact, the vinegar enhances the effectiveness of the baking soda to make these rise properly without the addition of eggs. Your substitution of vinegars will not be a problem and the oil you used should be fine too as long as you used the same amount. Underbaking a cake or cupcake can also cause them to be very puffy when you remove them from the oven, only to have them sink and fall later. The good old toothpick test will help next time if you think that may be a factor. Hope this helps and that you can still enjoy eating them!

      • Ah thank you! Next time I will try them with your GF Flour mix suggestion :) they turned out a very odd texture – kind of like really weird mousse! Definitely not edible, but that’s ok. Try & try again! Will let you know how my next attempt goes :)

  9. I made these for my son’s 1st and hubby said they were the best cupcake I’ve ever made (allergy free, or even back when I baked “normal”). My only issue was that they were crumbly. I used guar gum and your flour mix. I did use Bob’s flour but threw it in my grinder to get it extra fine (an they were fluffy and light when baked). Any thoughts on why they didn’t hold together so great?

    • Hi Roxanne, I’m so happy to hear that the cupcakes were a hit for your family. For this recipe I agree that the Bob’s flour was the problem. I think that it has may have more to do with the guar gum. Guar gum doesn’t thicken or strengthen gluten-free baked goods as powerfully as xanthan gum, so if you try them again and your family only uses guar gum, I would add 3/4 teaspoon guar gum instead of the 1/2 teaspoon that is called for. I will probably test a batch this week and see as I usually bake them with the xanthan gum. In cake baking, eggs and gluten are the two main ingredients that create the structure and integrity of the cake (so that things don’t get crumbly). Since this recipe is vegan and gluten-free, the gum is the only thing that is helping provide the structure of the cupcake, so too little may yield a crumbly cupcake. Thanks for your comment and I will let you know if I make a batch soon!

  10. I made these cupcakes just the other day and they were absolutely delicious! I will be making them all the time now since they are so easy and i have just recently gone gluten free. They worked out perfect but did not rise that high … i wonder why?
    THANK YOU , THANK YOU , THANK YOU!!!!!
    they were great :)

    • Hi Anna, So glad you liked them. I would say that these don’t rise all that high for me either. Just a touch above the cupcake liner with fairly flat tops. I just compensate with the frosting swirls! Being egg-free and gluten-free they just don’t have enough structure to get big domed tops like my vanilla cupcake recipe does (which has eggs).

  11. Hi, I was wondering if there is a way to make these cupcakes in a vanilla version? The chocolate ones look delicious, but some of my kids can’t have chocolate? Thank You!

  12. I did see that……they look delicious! Unfortunately I am looking for an egg-less recipe. I ended up making the chocolate ones and they were wonderful. Thank you so much for your recipes……my family is looking forward to sampling more of your Free Eats.

  13. This. Is. Delicious!!!!!!!! I’ve used only 3/4 cups of granulated sugar, added about a tablespoon of coconut flour and a couple of drops of Stevia to cut down on the sugar. I also used half the amount of brown rice flour and the other half, white rice in the GF flour mix. It was fantastic – perfectly dense, not too much but just enough, and the taste… the taste! Heavenly! Thank you so much for sharing – being forced into Gluten-free is quite the challenge, but with your recipes, it actually makes the whole process… fun! ^_^

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