Gluten-Free Vegan Strawberry Cupcakes With Great Texture

Name: Gluten-Free Vegan Strawberry Cupcakes
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 40 min
Ingredients: 221 grams gluten-free all-purpose flour (please click through for recommended blends, 1½ cup); 172 grams sugar (¾ cup); 7 grams baking powder (1½ teaspoon); 5 grams baking soda (1 teaspoon); 3 grams salt (½ teaspoon); 12 grams freeze-dried strawberry powder (1 tablespoon); 166 grams strawberries (about ~9 strawberries, depending on size); 83 grams canola oil (or other light tasting oil, ⅓ cup); 166 grams almond milk (or other vegan milk, ¾ cup); 6 grams vanilla extract (1½ teaspoon); 185 grams vegan butter (room temperature, 13 tablespoon); 365 grams powdered sugar (1¾ cup); 10 grams freeze-dried strawberry powder (1 tablespoon); 4 grams vanilla extract (1 teaspoon); hot water (as needed to thin the buttercream)

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Baking gluten-free is second nature to me now, but baking without eggs has been my nemesis for a long time... but no more! With this recipe for gluten-free vegan strawberry cupcakes, I finally found the right ratio of acids-bases and gluten-free flours to perfectly leaven the batter without compromising on texture or taste.

a gluten-free vegan strawberry cupcake on a white plate, with its wrapper peeled off. The swirl of pink frosting is topped with a fresh strawberry, and there is a glass of almond milk in the background.

This is a fantastic summer recipe, when strawberries are fresh, juicy and full of bursting delightful flavors! I'm a huge fan of the farm-to-table concept, and love day-dreaming about taking my kiddos to strawberry fields, hand picking berries to our heart's content while eating most of them, and coming home to bake as a family after a plentiful harvest. Check out this list of highly recommended strawberry fields in the US! Dreamy!

If you're interested in more vegan bakes, check out this gluten-free vegan lemon cake and this gluten-free sourdough bread! And if you'd like more cakes and cupcakes ideas, check out my gluten-free raspberry cake or gluten-free cookies and cream cupcakes.

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Ingredients
Instructions
Substitutions
Variations
Equipment
Storage
Top tip
FAQ
Gluten-Free Vegan Strawberry Cupcakes

Ingredients

I love how relatively simple this recipe is. It's just a few ingredients, and it's a one-bowl recipe. Below you'll see the ingredients for the gluten-free vegan strawberry cupcakes, and for the frosting.

7 containers on a dark wooden table: a metal bowl with flour, a large bowl with fresh strawberries, two measuring cups with oil and milk, and 3 small containers with sugar, vanilla extract and strawberry powder.

an overhead shot of ingredients on a beige granite counter: powdered sugar, strawberry powder, vegan butter and vanilla extract.

For the cupcakes

Gluten-free flour, please click through for recommendations as not all gluten-free mixes are created equal
Baking powder
Baking soda
Salt
Strawberries (fresh is best, but you can use frozen)
Neutral oil (I used canola)
Vegan milk (I used almond)
Sugar
Freeze-dried strawberry powder
Vanilla extract

For the frosting

Powdered sugar
Vegan butter (I used a coconut based butter)
Freeze-dried strawberry powder
Vanilla extract
Salt

See recipe card for quantities.

Instructions

This recipe for gluten-free vegan strawberry cupcakes is super beginner friendly. You essentially just add everything to one bowl, mix and bake!

Baking the cupcakes

First, mix all the dry ingredients together.

a bowl with dry ingredients, with a lot of pink from the strawberry powder, and a whisk resting on the side.

the dry ingredients have been mixed in the bowl and the pink from the powder is still slightly visible. A whisk rests on the side.

Next, purée the strawberries. It should be more liquid than chunky.

the strawberries have been puréed and there's chunks of strawberries on the side of the bowl.

Next, add the strawberry purée, vegan milk, oil and vanilla extract to the bowl of dry ingredients, and mix well until fully incorporated.

a bowl with a whisk: in the bowl we can see gluten-free flour, oil and lots of pink from the strawberry juice resting on top.

a bowl with a whisk: the ingredients have been mixed together and the batter is uniform, and pink.

We can now bake the cupcakes. Because they do not contain eggs, vegan cupcakes take much longer to bake than regular cupcakes. These will stay in the oven at 350F for at least 25 minutes, and come out golden brown. I cut one in half so you can see the texture: the crumb is dark and even, with a few larger airy bubbles.

a muffin tray filled with pink gluten-free vegan strawberry cupcake batter, about ¾ full.

a muffin tray with baked gluten-free vegan strawberry cupcakes, and we can see that the cupcakes have risen slightly over the muffin tray.

Frosting the cupcakes

The frosting I used in this recipe is my shelf-stable crusting American buttercream, but with vegan butter. If you've never made buttercream, take a look at the instruction video in the post to get just the right consistency!

For frosting the gluten-free vegan strawberry cupcakes, I used a 1M piping tip. It's much easier to fill the piping bag using a large glass for support as shown below.

a piping bag fitted with a piping tip resting inside a glass, frosting filling the bag.

a close up of the filled piping bag with vegan strawberry buttercream.

Now you're ready to make beautiful swirls! With the 1M tip, start in the middle of the cupcake, and pipe outwards counterclockwise. If you stop at the edge, you have a pretty rosette, or you can continue to pipe inwards like I did here, to get a larger amount of frosting. Top with an optional fresh strawberry.

closeup of a gluten-free vegan strawberry cupcake with a large frosting swirl, topped with a strawberry.

Hint: let the cupcake cool fully to room temperature before frosting, to avoid melting the buttercream.

Substitutions

The allergens for this recipe with the ingredients I used are: tree nuts (almond, coconut, sheanut). If you'd like to substitute these, below are my recommendations.

Almond-free - use a different plant-based milk, like rice milk or oat milk.
Coconut/sheanut-free - choose a vegan butter that is soy-based. I have had decent success with Country Crock Avocado based butter (allergen: soy). The only tricky thing is that it makes for a softer buttercream. It's still pipeable though, but not great for a hot day!

Variations

You can make this recipe with any fruits you'd like. The fruits are necessary because they bring acidity that will help curdle the vegan milk, which in terms helps cupcakes rise. I have had success with the following fruits:

Raspberry
Blueberry
Mango

Equipment

You don't need anything fancy here! Just a muffin tin and a food processor. For the frosting, I recommend a stand mixer, but you can also use an electric mixer.

Storage

If you top the buttercream with fresh strawberries, you need to eat the cupcakes the same day. However, if you top them right before eating, or omit the fresh fruit on top, these gluten-free vegan strawberry cupcakes are shelf-stable.

They'll be good on the counter for up to 3 days. After that, you can freeze them! If you freeze frosted cupcakes, pop them in the freezer 10 minutes to harden the buttercream, then wrap in plastic and store in an air tight container. Thaw to room temperature before serving. They'll be good for 1 month in the freezer.

Top tip

It's important to bake these cupcakes at a high temperature, for a longer time than regular cupcakes. No eggs means vegan cupcakes just take longer to bake. Please calibrate your oven using an oven thermometer to make sure the temperature is right (my oven runs 20 degrees hot!)

a gluten-free vegan strawberry cupcake on a plate, with a bite taken out of it. Four frosted cupcakes are on a cooling rack in the background, and a fresh strawberry is on the plate.

FAQ

Are gluten-free vegan cupcakes healthier?

Being vegan, or avoiding eggs/dairy/gluten, are all choices we make for our health. A gluten-free vegan cupcake is not necessarily "healthier" than a regular cupcake... this recipe uses sugar, saturated fats, oils etc, it just avoids some of the allergens our body may not tolerate.

How do you replace eggs in vegan baking?

Eggs have several roles in baking: leavening and binding. In this recipe, leavening is accomplished with the use of baking powder, as well as acid-base reactions from combining acidic strawberries with basic vegan milk. The role of binding is replaced by the hydrocolloids already present in the gluten-free flour mix: pectin and xanthan gum.

Where do you find freeze-dried strawberry powder?

I buy mine online, I like the Herbaila brand (not an affiliate link), as they are certified gluten-free. It's a big bag, but you can use it in smoothies, pancake batter, cookie batter, etc... it's a really fun ingredient to have around! If you don't want to invest in the powder, you can buy small bags of freeze-dried strawberries at Target, Trader Joe's, or Walmart, and powder them yourself in the food processor. If you go that route, I recommend sifting the powder for the buttercream, as to not get chunks that will clog your piping nozzle.