Dark chocolate cupcakes baked with swirls of pumpkin spice cheesecake and chocolate chips. Vegan and grain-free fall (or Halloween!) decadence!

Pumpkin Black Bottom Cupcakes (vegan + grain-free)

What Is A Pumpkin Black Bottom Cupcake?

This recipe starts with an easy, ultra chocolatey cupcake batter made with both cocoa powder and Chocolate SunButter. Next comes the pumpkin cheesecake topping, whipped together with dairy-free cream cheese, real pumpkin, and pumpkin pie spice. Scoop, swirl, sprinkle on chocolate chips, and wait for your new favorite fall treat to bake to fluffy perfection. Between the rich flavor and ultra fluffy texture, you’d never know these cupcakes are completely vegan and grain-free.

My best tip? Try one warm from the oven and enjoy all that still-melty chocolate chip gooeyness. Then! Refrigerate the rest and come back tomorrow…once they’re cold the cupcake goes from fluffy to brownie-fudgy, the pumpkin layer tastes like swirls of chilled cheesecake, and the snappiness of the chilled chips give every bite a little bit of chocolatey texture contrast. It’s the IDEAL way to eat them in my opinion.

How To Make These Yummy Fall Cupcakes

Those swirls may look complicated, but I promise these cupcakes are really easy to prepare you can easily have them in the oven in 15 minutes.

Vegan Grain-Free Chocolate Cupcake Ingredients

Sweeteners. We are using a combination of coconut sugar and maple syrup. Together they keep the cupcakes moist and perfectly sweet, plus the maple flavor blends deliciously with the pumpkin spices to come.
Almond milk. Or whatever nondairy milk you prefer.
Chocolate SunButter. Why use coconut oil or vegan butter when you can use Chocolate SunButter instead? It adds the same richness we need, plus SO much more flavor. Paired with cocoa powder we get a double punch of chocolate in this recipe.
Vanilla extract.
Flours. We are using a combination of cassava flour and just a little bit of coconut flour to even out the texture and create that perfect grain-free crumb without any eggs.
Cocoa powder. For an extra Halloween-y spin swap in dark cocoa powder and make them extra dark chocolatey!
Baking powder, soda, and salt.

Dairy-Free Pumpkin Cheesecake Swirl Ingredients

Cream cheese. Dairy-free to keep this recipe vegan, and make sure its softened completely to room temperature otherwise it won’t whip up smooth.
Pumpkin puree. I prefer organic canned pumpkin for best flavor and color.
Pumpkin pie spice. I used quite a bit because I like those warm fall spices to come through strong, but you can scale back a little if you prefer.
Vanilla extract.
Coconut sugar. To sweeten the swirls just a little, you could swap in brown sugar or maple syrup instead.
Arrowroot starch. Black bottom cupcakes typically call for eggs in the cheesecake swirl, but we are swapping in a starch instead. Tapioca or corn starch would work too.

After you layer and swirl these two delicious layers together, simply sprinkle on some mini or dark chocolate chips and bake!

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