Vegan - Gluten Free Salted Caramel and Chocolate Cupcakes

Yesterday I posted a recipe for vegan caramel sauce and I thought I would follow that up with an amazing recipe for vegan and gluten free chocolate and salted caramel cupcakes! I had the challenge this summer of making treats for two friends, one who is vegan and the other who is gluten free. I also had the added hurdle of making things taste good. I really wasn’t sure how it would turn out but it surprisingly turned out amazing.Everyone who ate these were very surprised at how good they were. I even had someone remark that he “didn’t actually expect these to be edible, but they were and they were great!” The people I actually made them for really enjoyed them too. They said it was definitely one of the better recipes they’d had made for them.[amd-yrecipe-recipe:226]Source: Cake adapted from Sarah Baked G-Free

Vegan Caramel Sauce

Over this summer I had a great challenge and it was to make some vegan and gluten free treats to bring to a potluck. I decided that you really can never go wrong with caramel so that was going to be the base for my recipe. I’d never made a vegan caramel sauce before so this was quite an adventure.This recipe wasn’t especially difficult but it wasn’t especially easy. It was pretty typical of a caramel recipe. I’ve made a couple in the past and it wasn’t much harder than any of those. You will need to have a candy thermometer on hand to get to the right temperature. If you don’t have one, you could definitely make this, it would just be much more difficult. You’ll find that this recipe calls for coconut cream. I was able to find a can of pure coconut cream at Trader Joe’s. However, if you’re not near one you can simply take a can of regular coconut milk and refrigerate it for about 2 hours. The cream will solidify to the top and you can simply skim it off. Either will work for this recipe. Do not use coconut milk from a carton though, this will not produce the results you need![amd-yrecipe-recipe:225]Source: Vegan Baking

Gluten Free – Dairy Free Dark Chocolate Cheesecake

My Mom loves cheesecake and we have a tradition of making her one every year on her birthday. However, I really wanted to make something new and with my sister being lactose intolerant I figured making a dairy-free cheesecake would be the perfect birthday cake for my Mom!I found dairy-free cream cheese at Trader Joes. I was worried about the taste since I’ve never worked with it before but all my concerns were for nothing. This was one of the best cheesecakes I’ve ever made. My brother even said he couldn’t really tell the difference between a real cheesecake and this one, and the rest of my family was SUPER impressed with the taste.This is a super rich, chocolaty cheesecake that is sure to please the whole family. It would be absolutely perfect for a New Year’s Eve party with friends even if they’re not dairy free! You can make this recipe Vegan by substituting some form of egg-substitute for the egg. Everything else is already vegan! I chose not to make this substitution since we can all digest eggs and none of us are vegan.[amd-yrecipe-recipe:149]Source: Adapted from About