
I have always known many pope who are gluten intolerant and its been a quest to find a delicate yet fuss free gluten free chocolate cake recipe. When the covid lockdown started and activity levels dropped, I realised that gluten or maida and other whole wheat flour in general is giving me stomach ache. So I shifted to a gluten free diet and feel much better. But all of my baked items always use wheat, so for a while I stopped baking.
But it couldn’t keep me away too long. After a couple of trials of gluten free recipes with locally available gluten free (GF) flour, I am in love with this one. No one realises they are gluten free till you specifically tell them. The GF flour is easily available on amazon, I have listed the links at the end.
This recipe makes a large batch- 24 cupcakes, you can either bake and distribute amongst friends like I did, or you can halve the recipe exactly. Instead of 3 eggs, you can use 2 if you wish to halve the recipe. It will work quite well, especially with the smaller eggs which we get in India.

Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes with Ganache
What you will need:
- 550 grams granulated sugar
- 3 eggs
- 410 ml warm milk
- 180 ml neutral oil
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 370 grams gluten free flour blend
- 130 gram cocoa powder
- 2 and 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 270 ml hot water
What to do :
- In a large bowl, whisk eggs and add the granulated sugar. Whisk till it is pale in color. Then add milk, oil and vanilla extract and whisk to combine it together.
- In another bowl, combine the gluten free flour mix + cocoa powder + baking powder + baking soda + salt. Mix and sieve all the ingredients together to incorporate more air in the mixture.
- Now mix in the dry ingredients with the egg-milk-oil mixture along-with the hot water alternately. Always start and end with the dry mixture. Generally when flour is added, you switch from a whisk to a spatula, but in this case, the mixture is slightly sticky, so continue using a whisk to combine the mixture.
- Preheat oven to 160 C for 5 minutes.
- Use a muffin pan, line it with cupcake paper liners. or use cake baking paper cups. Pour the batter 3/4th full and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, till a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
- Let it cool for 2 minutes in the pan and then place them on a grill or a wire rack for cooling.
- You can decorate them with this ganache recipe here after they have completely cooled down.

Notes :
- Salt helps bring out the delicate flavours in the baked items. Similarly, you can replace the hot water with hot black coffee to bring out a more pronounced chocolate flavour
- I use this gluten free flour for balking : Josef Marc multi purpose GF flour
- Don’t use groundnut oil for baking, it has a very distinct pungent smell. Always use a non smelly oil like sunflower oil or canola oil, I used this oil mostly in baking
If you make these cupcakes, tag me on Instagram or Facebook. Would love to see how they turned out for you.
Cheers, happy baking! 🙂
RC