Gluten Free Strawberry & Mango Cupcakes

You may remember back in February, when I had so much trouble with my Taste & Create assignment of Cupcake Project, because I had such trouble narrowing it down to one recipe. Regular readers might remember that I ended up making two more recipes from Stef's site, after Taste & Create was over for the month, purely because I couldn't resist Pomegranate Mojito Cupcakes or these cute Cupcakes in Orange Peels. Well guess what. This month, I'm paired with Stef again! And once again I had trouble deciding. I almost made these Chocolate Stout Cupcakes, but then I thought I wanted to save them for later in the week, to welcome home DP after a week away for work, and I wouldn't have them made, let alone blogged before the deadline. (so look for them in a week or two!) Then the Jasmine Cupcakes with Raspberry and Honey caught my eye, and I ended up using Stef's technique to bake with the flavour of tea as my recipe this month. I used some beautifully fragrant Strawberry and Mango herbal fruit infusion 'tea'. It was both caffeine and gluten free, being mostly fruit powder.

Melt butter


Obtain 'tea' leaves. I planned on leaving them in, so I crushed them finer


Mix together and cook on low heat for five minutes,
then cool, strain (if you want to) and use as directed in your recipe

I have a friend who is Coeliac and she has promised to come around in the school holidays to play Bop It with Master Six. So I thought I'd use the yummy fruit butter to make her some cupcakes. I looked at a few gluten free recipes, but in the end caved, because really, how many times am I going to use xanthan gum and gluten free baking powder and rice flour for anything else?

Ok, so it's a box mix... but for a good cause!

I followed the directions on the box, using my flavoured butter, and seeping a tea bag for 20 minutes in the water it called for.

Water as directed, flavoured with another tea bag


Ready to cook

I haven't iced them yet, though the box came with gluten free icing mix, because I'm storing these in the freezer until the day before she comes around, when I'll make the icing and ice the cupcakes. I don't trust myself around these not frozen for that long. I've eaten two out of the dozen myself already. Sooo good!