Gluten-free & Dairy-free Choco Cupcakes

Heading out to my friend's place this weekend, I decided to bring some nummy baked goods. Her eldest daughter, who I like to call my niece has a lot of food allergies.. gluten, dairy, soy, most beans.. =S what to do, what to do!! After a bit of searching for nummy recipes and then more searching for good substitutes I was able to find a recipe that didn't call for all these weird ingredients (that I had no idea where to find..unless maybe in an organic food store).

this is the recipe which I mostly followed.. but made a few modifications to it, to make it dairy-free:
http://jessicakesblog.blogspot.ca/2011/08/gluten-free-chocolate-cupcakes-and-more.html

Gluten-free & Dairy-Free Choco Cupcakes (makes about 2 dozen)

In a bowl sift together:

1 cup rice flour (white)
1/2 cup potato starch
1/4 cup glutinous rice flour
1 cup cocoa powder (I use Fry's)
1.5 tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp baking soda
2 cups sugar 
1 tsp sea salt

In a separate bowl, mix the following together:
2/4 cup Mott's unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup oil
2 eggs + 2 egg whites
1 cup almond milk
2 tsp pure vanilla extract

In a third bowl, mix (mix together until it looks like melted choco):
12 tbsp cocoa powder (I sifted it because it was clumpy)
4 tbsp vegetable oil 

Add choco mixture to the egg mixture, stir until combined. Then add the liquid ingredients to flour ingredients and whisk together.

Pour into muffin tins. 
Bake at 350F for aprox 15mins. 

Watch carefully.. I made a batch of cupcakes and as I only have 1 muffin tray, the rest I placed in a 9"x2" springform pan. The cupcakes were done after 13mins, the cake took a little longer.. maybe 18mins or so.
It's done when you can insert a chopstick and it comes out clean (or still a little moist but not overly so)

I left out the coffee as I didn't think my friend would be pleased to have her toddler bouncing off the walls all night long. haha 
I will be making another batch of this upon my return. And intend to make a few more mods.

I'll be replacing the sugar with honey, only using applesauce instead of applesauce & oil and will remove the vanilla extract, as I'm out of regular almond milk and will be using vanilla flavoured almond milk. =3
I'll also be adding espresso to it, where the coffee was left out.. not sure if I'll add it in powder form or actually brew a cup of it (okay 1/4 cup haha)
and I'll be making some mocha buttercream to add on top! 
I'm actually really eager to play around with this recipe some more, it turned out really tasty! 
Yup! I totally had a taste test *drools*

Here's a picture! they turned out really dark, but don't let the colour fool you.. they're oh so yummy!!