Shine Sweetly: Cupcake Wars

Chocolate Cupcakes W/ Vanilla Frosting and Raspberry Glaze

Some days a girl has just got to make cupcakes. I don't think I need to expand on that anymore. I have found that making a good healthier vegan chocolate cake is not too challenging. I even have made a great gluten free chocolate cake. And of course I have the super yummy chocolate frosting. But sometimes you want white frosting... and making this healthy posed a little greater of a challenge. There are some versions out there but they are infamously finicky, tend to melt at room temperature, and just not the fluffy sweet goodness of that white frosting from your childhood... hmmm

More on the frosting later... but first the cupcakes!

Ingredients:

1 cup non-dairy milk (I used coconut milk)

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup stevia

1/3 cup grape seed oil

1 tbsp pure vanilla extract

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup garbanzo/fava bean flour (you can use all WW but I ran out :) )

1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda

1/4-1/2 tsp cinnamon (optional)

3/4 tsp sea salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F, line a cupcake pan with cupcake liners.

2. With a fork, beat together milk, vinegar, sugar, oil and vanilla in a large bowl until nice n smooth (you could use an electric mixer but I like the arm workout)

3. Now sift the dry ingredients (flours, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt) into the wet. Mix well, until all clumps are gone.

4. Spoon the batter into prepared cupcake pan, about two thirds full for each cupcake. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until the cupcake slowly springs back when pressed with a finger. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

Almost ready!!

Time to Frost!

So I hit the drawing board full of energy and enthusiasm for creating the worlds best and healthiest vanilla frosting. My big idea was to use coconut cream (as used in banana brownies) instead of butter and sweeten with agave instead of confectioners sugar. This started out pretty well although was not as thick and fluffy as I wanted (I was using a food processor and not an electric mixer - this might make a world of difference) so I added some arrowroot powder- not bad. How about some xantham gum to really thicken it up.....BIG MISTAKE! It thickened it right into a big slimy goop of a mixture! Maybe I should have started with less than a TBSP of this....

YUCK!

So it was back to the drawing board but unfortunately I had used all my coconut cream with the batch that became the slime monster.. I resorted to using Earth Balance (vegan butter) and a blend of agave and natural cane juice sugar. Again, not bad but since I was using the granulated sugar in place of a confectioners sugar it was of course a little grainy... No problemo.... Ill just gently warm the mixture to dissolve the sugar, then refrigerate to thicken it up and re-process. URGHHH! (or however you type that obnoxious game show buzzer noise that you were way wrong). FYI, once you melt earth balance and dissolve sugar into it, it will not magically reform into its previous state... who knew?!?

At this point I let the vanilla frosting win.... I blended some Earth Balance, Confectioners Sugar and Vanilla and frosted the cupcakes. The battle is lost but the war is not over.... healthy vanilla frosting - I will discover your secret and unmask it to the fine readers of this here blog...

With my yummy, albeit not super healthy, vegan frosting in hand I went to work. I reserved a little bit of frosting and then mashed some raspberries into it to make a glaze and then topped with 1/2 of a fresh raspberry.

I devoured a few cupcakes and went to bed slight defeated but mostly happy... 'cause who doesn't LOVE cupcakes?!?!