Azerbaijani Freedom Cupcakes

Our good friend A is headed off to Azerbaijan to teach for a couple of years, so we took the opportunity to gather our church small group friends for a send off BBQ. The date that worked out best was the 4th of July. What a perfect date to celebrate the send off from the US to an international adventure.

It was also a good excuse to make a festive cake. Although, baking for A introduced a challenge: gluten free. First of all, I really wanted to do an ice cream cake, cause A LOVES ice cream, but I had no idea how to make that work at a super hot outdoor BBQ. So I settled on cupcakes, for ease of eating at a park. I wanted to make something Azerbaijan themed, so I got inspired by the Azerbaijani flag. I thought I could do a simple design with 3 rows of cupcakes in the corresponding colors with a fondant cutout to make the moon and star.

Sounds simple enough, but I needed to get this gluten free thing figured out. I read about different gluten free recipies, most of them needing tapioca flour, coconut flour, almond flour, or lots of other interesting flours I haven't worked with. I was very interested in playing around with this new stuff, but I was running short on time for the BBQ, and I didn't want to bring a pile of mush to the party if the cupcakes failed. So I settled on an all natural cupcake mix from Cherrybrook Kitchen.
I went ahead and bought the gluten free icing made by them also, because the gluten free recipes called for gluten free vanilla. I didn't think I'd use much of it, so I decided not to buy a bottle. Little did I know that the vanilla I had at home was gluten free, so I could have made it myself, but oh well.

The cupcakes turned out very nice, moist and delicious, but the icing was very soft and would not hold it's shape. I just wanted to pipe them on the cupcakes with a simple star tip, but even after beating in extra powdered sugar, that wouldn't hold. I figured even if the cupcakes didn't look perfect, the color of the icing and the fondant cut outs would still get the message across.

So here's what we ended up with! Azerbaijani Freedom Cupcakes = Gluten free, wheat free, dairy free, nut free, everything free really :) A enjoyed her gluten free goodness, as did everyone else!