Vegan Gluten Free Almond Cupcakes

These are delicious and have wholesome ingredients hidden inside! It is mostly a recipe from Jae Steele's vegan cookbook, "Get It Ripe," but I changed it around a tiny bit. She is my new idol. Go buy her book right now.
H'okay.

Almond Cupcakes

1/2 cup almonds or pecans or walnuts (or a mix of any)
1/4 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup quinoa flour
1/4 and 2 tbsp tapioca flour
2 tbsp flax seeds
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup maple syrup, agave, or sugar of choice (liquid sugars work better)
2/3 cup almond milk (or other milk substitute)
1/3 cup coconut oil
1 and 1/2 tsp pure almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extact
1 tsp apple cider vinegar


-Preheat oven to 350 degrees
-Grease a 12 cup muffin tray or use paper liners
-In a food processor, grind the flax seeds until fine
-Put the almonds (or other nuts) in the food processor and grind until slightly coarse (you can make it finer if you don't like them chunkay nuts)
-In a large bowl, combine the ground almonds and flax seeds with the flours, baking power, baking soda, and sea salt. Stir.
-Add everything else EXCEPT the vinegar and stir until a batter
-Add the vinegar and immediately pour muffins into tray
-bake 22 minutes

makes 12 cupcakes

*if you want more of a muffin-y taste, do not add the vanilla or almond extracts. This is a great variation if using maple syrup since you can taste it's flavour so much more.


ICING!

3 and 1/4 cups powdered sugar ***(look for sugar that says vegan. animal bones are used in the bleaching process of white sugars. this site is really cool and let's you know how to make icing sugar yourself: http://www.veganchef.com/veganpowder.htm)
1/4 cup arrowroot powder, or cornstarch
1 cup coconut oil, or margarine
1/4 cup almond milk (or other milk substitute)
2 tsp pure almond extract
2 drops vanilla extract
1/8 tsp sea salt




Even Tiny, our backyard squirrel, is a fan of these puppies.