Perfect GF Cupcakes!

I love to check out other people's blogs, and do a lot of searching for recipes online. With all the fresh strawberries I got at Way Fruit Farm, I had to make strawberry shortcakes. I like to do this with cupcakes because they're such a nice individual size. I found a recipe online for great gluten free cupcakes, which is, for all of you who have tried, hard to do. Well, she was right, they are perfect, and so I'll recopy it here, but give you the link to her post.

First, start with the Gluten Free Pantry Old-Fashioned cake mix, just the mix
1 pkg vanilla instant pudding
1/2 cup sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup canola oil
3/4 cup orange juice
1 Tbsp plus 2 tsp good vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350.
Mix the wet ingredients in a large bow. Add the combined dry ingredients and beat on high speed for two minutes.
Line 18-20 muffin tins with liners. Fill 2/3 to 3/4 of the way full for cupcakes with nice mounds on top. This recipe is so great, that when you overfill, it won't just spread out but actually rise up.
Bake for about 25 minutes, or until golden and test done.

All that vanilla extract really masks any taste of the orange juice (which is what makes the cake rise so very well), and these taste really good. They're still rather heavy, but they're gluten-free, so there's not much getting around that.

For the great cupcakes pictured here, I used a bit of lemon curd to make a sweet and tangy frosting that was so great! I only had a few cupcakes left, so I'll try to adjust the amounts of the frosting for you to get a dozen cupcakes, but you might have to fudge with it.

3-4 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp lemon curd
yellow food coloring

Cream the butter, then add the powdered sugar and mix. Add the vanilla and mix, then add enough lemon curd to achieve desired consistency and taste. If you don't want it too tangy, you can also add some milk, and less lemon curd.

Enjoy!