Gluten Free Vegan Raspberry Flamingo Cupcakes

Nothing says summer party like flamingo cupcakes. Bursting with fruity flavour and bold colour, these cupcakes are the life of the party.

You can opt to make them whatever flavour you want and use food colour in the buttercream, but I chose raspberry as it creates the colour as well as taste. Two birds one stone.

This recipe yields 12 muffin size cupcakes. Halve the quantity of batter if you would rather make 12 regular sized cupcakes.

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You will need:

• Fondant rolling pin
• Small food paint brush
• Ball tool (optional)
• Stand or hand held mixer
• Sieve
• Muffin tray
• Muffin/cupcake cases
• Saucepan
• Piping bag
• #3 star piping tip

Ingredients:

Decorations

• 100g pink fondant
• Black food colour
• Tbsp gin or vodka
• Edible gold dust

Cake

• 2 tbsp ground flaxseed
• 6 tbsp water
• 80g (6 tbsp) hard vegetable shortening
• 280g (1 ½ cups) caster sugar
• 200g (2 cups) plain gluten free flour
• 40g (6 tbsp) extra dark cocoa powder
• 3 tsp baking powder
• a pinch of salt
• ½ tsp xantham gum (optional)
• 240ml tinned coconut milk
• ½ tsp vanilla extract

Buttercream

• 1 punnet of raspberries (125g approximately)
• 170g (¾ cup) hard vegetable shortening
• 345-375g (2¾-3 cups) powdered icing sugar
• ½ tsp vanilla extract

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Decorations

Step 1

Tear off a piece of pink fondant, about the size of a ping pong ball. Knead to warm up in your hands, then roll into a sausage shape.

Step 2

Pinch the icing about a centimetre from one end and roll between your thumb and forefinger to create a dip and enlarge the head. Pinch the tip and push up slightly to make the top of the head bigger and the beak shape at the tip.

Step 3

Repeat steps 1 to 2 until you have 12 or 13 of these fondant flamingo head shapes.

Step 4

Mix together a tiny bit of gin or vodka with some black food colour to create a paint. Brush on to the beak at the tip and a dot for the eyes.

Step 5

Using a clean brush, paint a line of gold at the top of the beak.

Step 6

Curl the top of the flamingo head in an arc then bend in the other direction below to make an S-shape. Lay on a flat surface and leave to set overnight. If you try to decorate the same day the head will not hold itself up or keep the curves you just created.

Step 7

Take a small bead of fondant the size of a large pea, and roll out into a thin circle. Rub the edges to thin them, this is easier if you have a ball tool. Gently press the thinned edge with a fork to create a feather effect. You need to make at least 24 of these, potentially a few extra incase of any breakages. Set aside to dry.

Cake

Bake the cupcakes according to this chocolate cupcake recipe or use another flavour such as lemon. Everything needed for the chocolate recipe is listed above in the ingredients section. Set aside to cool completely.

Buttercream

Step 1

Crush the raspberries with a fork or pulse in a food processor if you have one. Then transfer to a fine sieve over a saucepan. Push the juice through the sieve with a wooden spoon, working the pulp until there is little left except seeds.

Step 2

Reduce the raspberry puree over a medium heat until you are left with half the quantity you started with. This should take about 10 minutes.

Set aside to cool completely, which will be about half an hour or speed chill in the freezer for 5 minutes.

Step 3

Cream the vegetable shortening with a mixer until light and fluffy. Adding ⅓ of the icing sugar at a time, blend on a slow speed with a scatter guard until incorporated. Turn up to high speed for a few seconds then repeat using the rest of the icing sugar.

Step 4

Add the vanilla extract and reduced raspberry puree and beat in until fluffy. The buttercream will gain a soft pink colour from the raspberries and a hint of tartness amongst the creamy sweetness of the butter and sugar.

Step 5

Transfer to a piping bag with a #3 star piping tip and pipe onto the cupcakes.

Step 6

Press the flamingo head into the buttercream at the closest point to the edge, where the buttercream is still deep. Press until the flamingo head holds itself in place. Then place the wings either side on top of the buttercream with the closest part of the wing to the head of the flamingo slightly tucked into the buttercream.

Leave to dry.

Thanks for reading, I hope these cupcakes give you good summer vibes.