Allergen Free Chocolate Cupcakes

So I was doing some more baking with my nanny kids, and I came across this recipe from Martha Stewart. It worked out really well, I probably should've used smaller cases but the little girl I nanny wanted to use the bigger ones, so that was okay. Even though they sound kind of weird, being allergen free, they taste great and as a plus, they're way cheaper. No eggs or butter or anything expensive, making them very student friendly! The icing is pretty easy on the wallet too, just a little bit of butter. I thought they looked really cute and the kids really liked them.

Allergen Free Chocolate Cupcake

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups plain flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1t baking soda
1/2t salt
5T vegetable oil
1T white vinegar
1t vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups water

50g butter
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
2-4T boiling water

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 175°C. Line a 12 cup muffin tin with cupcake liners and set aside. In a bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt and set aside. Using an electric mixer (or by hand, I did it by hand and my arm muscles aren't even very strong!) mix together oil, vinegar, vanilla and water until well combined. Add the flour mixture and mix until smooth. The batter should look and feel more watery than normal cake/cupcake batters. Pour the batter into the prepared muffin tin, filling each cup 1/2 to 3/4 full. Put the tray in the oven and bake until a skewer inserted into the centre of one or two cupcakes comes out clean, 20-25 mins. Immediately remove the cupcakes from the muffin tin and transfer to a wire rack. Let cool completely before icing.

Icing:
Melt the butter in a heatproof bowl and then add the icing sugar. Mix together as well as you can and then add the hot water. You just need to add enough that it gets to icing consistency, I generally find about 4T is good, but it really depends. It's easier to add more hot water if it's too thick, so don't add too much! Be careful in the amounts that you add.

We also used pink food colouring and food glitter to make them sparkly. :) Enjoy!