Joy Cupcakes

Greg & I made a trip out to Doncaster shopping centre today as I had a pressing need to buy a Mimco headband.  Once I had accomplished my mission we were wandering around when we walked past a cupcake stand & Greg noticed that they had vegan cupcakes.  I was pretty excited about this so we bought some to take home.  They only have two flavours that they do vegan - black & white (which I think is chocolate & vanilla) and red velvet.  Black & white are available on Thursday, Friday & Saturday with red velvet being available on the other days.  Some of the other flavours that they have sound amazing like baklava, toffee apple & salted caramel so it is a bit disappointing that only the more boring flavours are available in vegan but it is still pretty exciting to be out at a suburban shopping centre & be able to buy a vegan cupcake.

Anyway the cupcakes themselves are quite nice - they are really moist with a rich chocolatey flavour , I wasn't a huge fan of the icing though because it didn't really taste like anything.  They are pretty expensive at $4 each but if you happen to be out shopping & need a sugar fix at least there is an available option.

Joy Cupcakes
Westfield Doncaster
619 Doncaster Road 
Doncaster 

Chocolate Mousse Cupcakes

I am pretty sure that it is the law that you have to eat cake on your birthday so for Greg's birthday I decided to make chocolate mousse cupcakes.  I was going to make a whole chocolate mousse cake & cover it with ganache but was concerned about how we would go eating an entire cake so thought that cupcakes would be more manageable.

I made the chocolate cake recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking which is ridiculously easy & also made the chocolate mousse recipe from the same book.  I thought the mousse tasted a bit tofu-y to start with but added a bit of maple syrup & once it chilled for awhile didn't taste like tofu at all.  I then just cut the tops off the cupcakes & scooped a little hole into each cake which I filled with mousse.  The mousse didn't set as well as I had hoped so it came out the sides a bit once I put the tops back on.  But after sitting the cakes in the fridge for a couple of hours the mousse set more.  I had originally planned to make a ganache to cover each cake with, but had heaps of mousse left over so served the cakes topped with a dollop of mousse.  These ended up being delicious, but verrrry rich.

Cupcake kebabs

When Greg & I decided to host a potluck (blogged about by Kristy here), he decided that we should make cupcake kebabs which I thought was the best idea ever!  I decided to make them completely gluten free & thread cupcakes, mini donuts, biscuits & lollies on the skewers.  I had a disaster with the first lot of cupcakes I made, so ended up making some mini choc chip muffins instead using this recipe:

Ingredients

• 340 grams self raising gluten free flour
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 120 grams caster sugar
• 120 grams nuttelex
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar 
• soy milk, to mix
• vegan chocolate chips - about 3/4 cup

Method

1. Rub the dry ingredients in with the nuttelex.
2. Add the wet ingredients, adding a little milk at a time to get a soft dropping consistency.
3. Beat the mixture well to combine & stir through the chocolate chips.
4. Add paper liners to the muffin tin and fill with the mixture.
5. Bake at about 190 degrees Celsius until cooked through & brown (about 10-15 minutes for the mini muffins)

I then made mini donuts using my donut maker, yes I have a donut maker which I have now used a total of two times.  I used this recipe from the Sunbeam website which worked really well:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups gluten-free plain flour
• ½ cup caster sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons gluten-free baking powder
• 125g butter, melted
• ¾ cup milk
• 1 egg, lightly beaten (I used egg replacer)

Method

1. Preheat Doughnut machine. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre. Whisk in the butter, milk and egg until mixture forms a smooth batter. Transfer to a jug.
2. Spray machine with cooking oil. Pour batter into preheated doughnut rings. Close lid and cook for 6 minutes or until doughnuts are golden and cooked. Use a non-stick spatula to transfer doughnuts to a wire rack. Repeat with remaining batter to make 10 doughnuts in total.

I then added halved Leda choculence biscuits & topped each skewer with Organic by Nature Cheery Bear lollies (these lollies are so good!!)  I think my gluten free baking still needs A LOT of work but the kebabs turned out ok & looked very impressive!!

Gluten free carrot cupcakes for a gluten free picnic

Friday night was a gluten free potluck picnic (Steph has blogged here) which was originally cheese themed so I decided to make my food gluten free & cheesy.  For my savoury food I changed my mind heaps of times when trying to decide what to make but right from the start I thought that for my sweet food I wanted to make gluten free carrot cupcakes with a cream cheese frosting.

The first batch of cupcakes I made were these from A Gluten Free Day.  I made them earlier in the week before the picnic planning to freeze them since I like to be organised.  When they were freshly baked they were beautifully light & fluffy but because they don't actually have grated carrot in them (which I didn't realise until I started making them) they were not what I wanted.  So I left them for us to eat but they were incredibly stale by the next day.

 

So it was the night before the picnic & I started worrying about how I was going to have time to prepare anything, especially given that Thursday nights are a struggle for me because I go to prenatal pilates in the evening.  But for some reason I managed to have an amazingly productive thursday the day before the picnic - worked a completely hectic 10 hour day, did 2 days worth of dishes, got dinner ready & made a new batch of cupcakes all before I went to pilates. I was hoping that these cupcakes would work because I really did not want to be making a second batch later that evening & luckily they did!  These were really nice - full of chunky bits due to the walnuts & raisins & really tasty.  Unfortunately they had started to go a bit stale by the next night but apparently that is just the way it seems to be with gluten free baking.  I based these cakes on a recipe from recipezaar which is apparetly from Gluten Free Goddess but I did change quite a few things so my recipe is below.

Ingredients

Carrot Cupcakes

• Orgran egg replacer equivalent to 3 eggs)
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1/3 cup apple sauce
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 cups orgran self raising gluten free flour
• 3/4 cup dessicated coconut
• 1 1/2 cups carrots, shredded (about 4)
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup walnuts

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees
2. Prepare cupcake liners or grease a muffin tray
3. In a mixing bowl, beat the egg replacer & oil and beat; add the brown sugar and beat until smooth.
4. Beat in the apple sauce, vanilla, cinnamon and spice.
5. Add in the flour and beat until combined. (The batter should be a bit thicker than wheat flour batter.).
6. Add in the coconut, carrots, raisins, and nuts; stir with a wooden spoon to combine.
7. Put the batter evenly in the cupcake liners or muffin tray and place the pan in the center of a pre-heated oven.
8. Bake until the cakes are firm, and a wooden pick inserted into the center emerges clean, about 15-20 minutes (or longer if necessary).
9. Cool on a wire rack and frost with cream cheese icing.
10. For cream cheese icing, beat tofutti cream cheese with icing sugar

 

Cupcakes!!

My mum invited us over for lunch today to have a look at her garden since we are getting married there at this time next year. She is in charge of our wedding cake, which will be cupcakes & my sister & I suggested that she trial some of her cupcakes for us. When we got to her house we were greeted with 2 stands of cupcakes that she had made - plain vanilla cupcakes & mango cupcakes. These were so delicious & my cousin's 7 year old daughter proceeded to eat 4 of them!!

When I first went vegan my biggest concern was that I wouldn't be able to partake in our big family lunches any more, but my family have been amazing. They are all really supportive & my mum bought Veganomicon & she loves to try new things things to make us & always sends us away with containers of vegan goodies.