Gluten Free Lemon Curd Cupcakes

I recently bought my mum the Harry Eastwood Book - Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache as it has lots of gluten free recipes. It also uses vegetables instead of the fat such as courgettes and this sounded perfect for getting rid of a vegetable garden glut in a delicious way.

Here I have used the sponge recipe for her Strawberry & Cream Cupcakes but used lemon curd instead of jam and didn't add a buttercream top as these little cakes were rich enough. I really recommend her book which is quirky and fun with lots of lovely photos and you get to freak out your friends and family when you tell them what vegetable they have just been eating unbeknownst to them!

My cupcakes tasted really good being moist and tasty and coming out of the paper case easily - you really cannot tell that these are gluten free. However, they were really not particularly pretty and would look much better with a butter cream topping with a dollop of lemon curd added. As my OH and I both liked them as they were then all the pictures show them "naked" and like the best of us not looking their best.

You could make these little cakes dairy free if you need to by using good quality jam instead of lemon curd which is normally made with butter.

Lemon Curd Cupcakes (Makes 8-10 small cakes)
gluten free, vegetarian

Ingredients 
1 Large egg
80g Sugar
100g Finely grated courgette
1/2 tsp Vanilla essence
50g Rice flour
50g Ground almonds
1 tsp Baking powder
2 tbsp Homemade lemon curd or good quality bought

Methods

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/350 degrees F/ gas mark 4.
• Line a muffin tin with individual paper cases.
• In a bowl whisk up the egg and sugar until quite light and fluffy.
• Whisk in the grated courgette then add the vanilla essence, rice flour, ground almonds and baking powder and whisk again until well mixed.
• This makes a pretty wet batter and does not have the consistency of traditional cake batter. Don't worry it will still work. 
• Spoon the batter into the paper cases until half full then add 1/2tsp lemon curd in the centre of each. Top with batter so that lemon curd is covered and case is filled with 3/4 full of batter.
• Bake for 20mins in the oven until light brown on top and cooked through. 
• Leave to cool in tin. Store in a cool airtight container where they will last for a couple of days.