Vegan Chocolate Heart Shaped Cupcakes (Gluten-Free)

These vegan Valentine's cupcakes will be a house favorite in no time!

Sweetened with coconut palm sugar they taste good enough to sell and they're easy to whip up.

Though they make a great Valentine's cupcake, they actually work for just about any occasion.

As a Certified Nutrition Coach, I don't eat sugar-loaded sweets often, but these heart-shaped cupcakes are a treat even I can't say no to as they make Valentine's just so special for the kiddos- here's some great Valentine's photoshoot ideas too if you really want to capture moments.

Ingredients You Need For The Heart Cupcakes

Gluten-free flour: make sure to use Bobs Red Mill Gluten-Free 1:1 Baking Flour for the light, soft texture. Not all gluten-free flours are the same blend and thus each one can absorb liquid differently.

Coconut oil: measure your coconut oil solid but then make sure to melt it before mixing it into the cake batter.

Coconut milk: you want to use the thick, white, coconut cream from canned coconut milk. Make sure to drain any water. This is meant to give the gluten-free chocolate cupcakes a rich and indulgent feel. excessive water will change the texture.

Coconut palm sugar: this sugar is approved on the paleo diet if that's a thing for you. If not, regular cane sugar works well for the heart-shaped cupcakes too.

Cacao powder: not to be confused with cocoa powder, cacao has a lot more nutrients in it and gives a much darker chocolate flavor (learn the difference between cacao and cocoa powder).

Baking powder: Needed to give some air to the cake batter so that the cupcakes fluff up nicely.

Chocolate chips: make sure to use allergy-friendly chocolate chips if you need the heart-shaped cupcakes to be dairy-free and vegan.

How To Make Heart Shaped Cupcakes

1. Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit.
2. Mix all dry ingredients in one bowl except the chocolate chips.
3. Melt the coconut oil and whisk the wet ingredients together in another bowl before pouring them into the dry mixture and stirring..
4. Mix in the chocolate chips and spoon batter into your silicone mold.
5. Bake cupcakes for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool in the mold fully so that they can firm up.
6. Transfer the heart cupcakes to a cooling rack after mostly cooled.
7. Whip up the dairy-free frosting and pipe it onto the cool cupcakes.

Easy, Dairy-Free Buttercream Icing

Icing will be the death of me, it's something I simply don't excel at. However, the pink icing for these heart-shaped cupcakes is pretty damn awesome.

Thus, this pink frosting is:

• vegan
• colored without the use of dyes
• very sweet
• made from a Nuts For Cheese butter which means other butters may come out with a different texture.

The icing uses cane sugar and butter to get it's texture and beet powder to color it.

Fact: no, the beet powder will not affect the taste of the vegan frosting.

Tip: because the icing uses cane sugar, you'll want to grind the sugar down before mixing it into the butter. Cane sugar naturally comes in larger granules and I've found that it doesn't quite dissolve during the aeration process of the icing (notice in the picture below). So, use a coffee grinder to grind it down.

Likewise, without grinding it you'll notice (in the picture below) that the icing looks textured/chunky on the heart-shaped cupcakes. It tastes fine but grinding down the sugar will make the cupcakes more aesthetically pleasing.

The icing is extremely sweet, and it can be piped (as you see in the video). However, it is a bit thicker than traditional icing. This means, if you're piping it onto the heart-shaped cupcakes you'll want a very large hole on your instrument as you'll notice it gum up. In the video you'll see that I don't even use a piping tip, I simply use the bag.

Another option would be to use this dairy-free cream cheese icing in its place. Or this high-protein, dairy-free buttercream frosting. Equally delicious (especially on chocolate protein powder cupcakes) and you can top with pink sprinkles too!

Note: Want to change the color of the icing? I use acai powder for purple, spirulina for a blue-ish hue, and chlorella for green 😉

Another Icing Option

Another option to ice these heart cupcakes is to use coconut whip cream. Coconut whip is lighter, normally less sugar-filled, and absolutely delicious. It's actually what I used for my girl's sugar-free 1st birthday smash cake.

That said if you've ever used coconut whip before you'll know it melts pretty quickly out of the fridge- something to keep in mind.

Cupcake Liners Or A Muffin Tin

You'll want to use a silicone muffin mold for the heart-shaped cupcakes. Partially because you can't get heart-shaped cupcake liners.

But also because these cupcakes tend to stick to cupcake liners and peeling them off ruins the cupcakes.

How To Store Valentine's Cupcakes

These heart-shaped cupcakes are best stored are room temperature and thus best eaten within a day or two. Though they can be stored in the fridge, the cupcakes will lose their softness and instead firm up.

Placing them back at room temperature will make them soften up again after an hour or two but not to the extent that they were.

Other Gluten-Free Dessert Recipes You'll Love

• Chocolate peanut butter protein cups
• Chocolate dairy-free frosting
• Paleo chocolate chip cookies
• Protein truffles
• Vanilla protein ice cream
• Dairy-free S'mores cups
• Candy cane fudge
• The BEST dairy-free brownies
• White chocolate fudge
• Peppermint patty bars
• Fudgy protein brownies
• Chocolate frosted cashew cookies
• Sugar-free pudding
• Healthy chocolate pudding
• Peanut butter thumbprint cookies
• High protein snack ideas
• Healthy dessert recipes