The Gluten Free Spouse: Mimi Cakes : Gluten Free Chocolate and Cheesecake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

So, My dear friend Mimi had a Birthday while we are visiting and I offered to bake her a cake. She suggested cupcakes. Not just any cupcakes but She was quite specific. Mimi wanted chocolate cupcakes with cheesecake filling and cream cheese frosting.

I took this as a gluten free challenge and set out to wow her.

Mimi and her husband Tim don't need to eat gluten free but while Shawn and I are visiting they are willing guinea pigs for my gluten free baking and cooking.

These turned out super delicious and little denser than a cupcake, which I did not mind at all. I am sure these will be devoured quickly by anyone you bake them for since 12 of these vanished into thin air as soon as they were revealed.

Cupcake Ingredients

3/4 cup sweet rice flour
3/4 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup potato starch (not potato flour)
1 teaspoon Guar gum
1 teaspoon Xanthan gum
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup cocoa
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 stick salted sweet cream butter
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 tablespoon flaxseed meal
3 tablespoons water
1 and 1/2 cups sugar

Filling Ingredients

4 ounces of Neufchatel cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg

Frosting Ingredients

8 ounces Neufchatel cheese
1/2 stick of salted sweet cream butter
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 pound bag of powdered sugar

Begin by mixing the flaxseed meal and the water and setting this aside to get "goopy".

Next whisk the flours, starches and gums together thoroughly.

Next add the cocoa and whisk in until thoroughly incorporated. Set this aside for now.

Next in your stand mixer bowl, cream together the sugar, butter, egg, pure vanilla extract, and flaxseed meal slurry.

Add the cocoa flour mixture 1/3 at a time alternating with the buttermilk, 1/3 at a time. The batter will be more of a thick dough when finished. Spoon the batter evenly into 2 muffin tins lined with paper cupcake liners, keeping back a small amount for topping the filling. Then using a wet spoon that I repeatedly kept dipping in water, make an indentation in each cupcake as pictured below. (the half on the left side of the picture are indented with the spoon to show the difference)

Then mix up the filling.

Spoon the filling evenly into all 24 cupcakes.

Once the cupcake liners have the first layer of cake and the layer of filling, start topping off with a small dab of the cake batter you had held back.