Skinny gluten-free patty cakes for St. Patricks's Day

These cute little 'patty' cakes are sugar, gluten and dairy-free! I am saying this in a voice like "I can't believe it's not butter!" Honestly these cakes taste just as great as normal cupcakes but are made over to be skinny classified. In saying that, since I have had a difficult week (think engaged last week, not engaged this week) I had to ice these with butter-cream icing, tinted green for the Irish holiday. Old fashioned butter-cream icing is a go-to comfort food for me (childhood birthday cake memories) but I make sure to ice the cakes with some restraint. To spice up the flavour, I added some SkinnyGirl Margarita mix because I had some lingering in my fridge and again will put this down to my sombre mood not the relevance of tequila to St. Patrick's Day. I'll let you know if I come up with any way to incorporate Guinness into a cupcake for future Irish occasions. Of course, the margarita flavour is optional and omit this if you like.

I thought these tasted best when very fresh, otherwise 10 seconds or so in the microwave revive the moistness of the cakes. I don't frost all of mine and freeze half the cakes immediately if I don't have enough of a crowd to please. The icing can go in a small zip lock bag and also into the freezer. To defrost the icing, just spoon out how much you think you will need for one cupcake (or however many you want to ice) and leave in a bowl for a 10 minutes to reach room temperature. Then you can spread away!

On a decoration note, I did think little green apple candies would look sweet on top of each cake. This was my plan but I ended up finding too much solace in my kitchen to leave! Let me know if you have any other cute ideas for decoration inspirations.

Skinny Gluten-Free Patty Cakes for St. Patrick's Day

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups of gluten-free self-raising flour, sifted
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder, sifted
• 1/2 cup of rice milk
• 2 eggs, room temperature 
• 50 grams of butter, room temperature
• 4 tablespoons of natural sweetener Natvia
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
• 1 teaspoon of coconut essence
• 2 tablespoons of SkinnyGirl Margarita
• 2 drops of green food colouring

Icing:

• 50 grams of butter, room temperature
• 2 tablespoons of rice milk
• 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar, sifted
• 3 drops of green food colouring

Method:

1. Using and electric mixer, whip butter and sweetener together.
2. Continue mixing and add one tablespoon of flour.
3. Then add 1 egg, another tablespoon of flour and the other egg.
4. Add 1/2 cup of flour and continue mixing.
5. Add 1/4 cup of rice milk.
6. Add the rest of the flour, the rest of the rice milk, the baking powder, the essences, the SkinnyGirl Margarita and the green food colouring.
7. Divide the batter into 12 greased cupcake holes.
8. Bake in a moderate oven for 25 minutes.

To make icing:

1. When cakes are completely cool, you can ice the cupcakes.
2. With an electric mixer, whip together butter, icing sugar, rice milk and green food colouring until thick and creamy. Add more icing sugar if the icing isn't fluffy enough or add a splash of rice milk if the icing is too thick.
3. Ice each cupcake as generously as you like.
4. Garnish with whatever you please, I think a little green clover would look cute.