For this year’s Girls Night In, we had vegan coconut cupcakes with buttercream frosting and I also made a gluten-free version. The gf version was a wee bit dry, but I’m sure some tweaking of the recipe will sort that right out. I had a great night with some of my wonderfully funny and clever female relatives AND we raised $325 to fight women’s cancers. Woo!
Hubby says these aren’t real cookies, so I’m calling them ookies. He eats them anyway!
The banana is the overriding taste in these ookies, almost a banana bread flavour. They aren’t real crispy on the outside, more soft and moist all over. Find the recipe here on a great blog called 101 Cookbooks. Thanks to my co-worker Eve for showing me the recipe.
I love coconut. I love these cupcakes. I want another! I found the recipe posted on a fashion message board, of all places. The recipe is by Bethenny Frankel. My version is almost 100% vegan. I used margarine (instead of vegan shortening) which does contain a small amount of dairy (listed as milk solids).
The recipe calls for vegan shortening. In Australia, a common type of vegetable shortening is Copha. That’s right, the stuff most of us only ever use to make the childhood favourite chocolate crackles. Does anyone use Copha for anything else? I’d love to know! Copha is basically hydrogenated coconut oil. In other words, saturated fat galore.
*I used Meadow Lea margarine, which is made from vegetable oils — including canola oil — and a great deal less saturated fat. It’s not health food by any means, but I felt more comfortable baking with margarine over Copha. I’m sure butter would also work (but then it’s bye bye vegan!).
*I used plain wheat flour instead of oat flour.
*I couldn’t get coconut extract easily, so I settled for coconut essence. I wasn’t disappointed, the cake has a nice coconut flavour.
*I got about 11 cupcakes from the batter. Next time I may squeeze it out to 12.
*I halved the ingredients for the icing and still had enough to cover all of my cupcakes.
These cupcakes were very easy to make and took about 20 minutes to bake. Don’t expect the baked product to have the same consistency as cupcakes containing egg. I ate my cupcake while it was still a little warm.
Seven poor little un-iced white chocolate mud cupcakes sitting in a container feeling unpretty. What to do? Turn them in to koalas of course! The directions are in the current issue of New Idea magazine, but the basics are grey buttercream frosting, coconut, marshmallows, black jelly beans and brown mini M&Ms.
It was by chance that hubby and I stumbled upon Babycakes in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. On the way back from the gym we popped in to sample the cakes, but alas, the latest batch were only just out of the oven. We were told to come back in 20 minutes or so. Of course we returned, and placed our order. We chose three of the four flavours available – red velvet, chocolate and coconut.
We weren’t disappointed. Fresh, moist and tasty. My only complaint was the texture was so fine that they were a bit crumbly. You can’t beat fresh cupcakes though! Babycakes’ web site seems to be unavailable, however you can find their contact details here.
Katie’s cupcake tour of America rating – 4/5
Fruity and very moist, these cupcakes are delicious! Some people say the cake got it’s name from:
“…the sweetness, which is supposed to be reminiscent of the sweet liquid that attracts hummingbirds to their feeders.”
while others say:
“This southern classic takes its name from the fact that it tastes so good, you’ll ‘hum’ when you eat it.”
The recipe is another from The Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook; I halved the amounts again. I made 16 cupcakes, using pineapple I crushed into pieces myself. I omitted the ginger, as I didn’t have any on hand. It’s an easy one-bowl recipe that cooks in about 20 minutes. Hummingbird cakes are usually topped with cream cheese frosting and coconut. This is the first time I have baked or eaten hummingbird cake, so I can’t compare the recipe to others for the same dessert.
I packaged four cupcakes in a Wilton box to give to my cousin tomorrow as a small thank-you gift, we’ll see what she thinks of them!
Purchase Wilton cupcake boxes here for US customers. Purchase smaller Wilton boxes here for Australian customers.
Again trying not to bake only chocolate-flavoured treats, this weekend I made white chocolate mud cupcakes from The Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook. This is the second recipe I’ve made from the book and so far so good; however, it does appear that the recipes make very large quantities of cupcakes. This time I halved the recipe, which did not seem to affect the recipe’s success at all. I still made about 30 cupcakes. The silicone cupcake tray I use has moulds with a 5 cm/2 inch base, and they are about 4 cm/1 1/2 inches deep. This is the size of cupcake I prefer, just enough cake to get some cake and some icing with every bite!
These cakes are not like true mud cakes, they are dense but not quite as solid and fudgy as the usual mud cake. They taste like a rich butter cake with a nice, not too heavy texture but they definitely aren’t light and fluffy. They would work well with a plain icing if you were baking them for a white chocolate lover. The recipe would definitely give you a basic vanilla cake to decorate as you please. All up, a very yummy cupcake recipe!
As it was football Grand Final weekend here in Australia, I decorated the cupcakes accordingly. To the basic buttercream icing I added green food colouring and just enough coconut to make the icing look “grassy” without overwhelming the white chocolate/buttery taste of the cake. I painted “laces” onto chocolate covered nuts with icing. This time I used Cake Mate decorating gel, which comes in tubes ready for decorating. This is the US version and this is the Australian version. A pack of four colours retails here for about $4.50 at the usual supermarkets. The gels do contain corn syrup and genetically modified ingredients, which is why I would not use them in large quantities, but that is a personal decision. They are handy and don’t require refrigeration.
Here is the recipe, straight from the book. I used half the following amounts and baked the cupcakes for 26 minutes at 155 degrees Celsius. I have added the conversions for the measurements and temperature. The recipe states it makes 20 darioles or 24 cupcakes, keeps for four days and can be frozen (uniced) for two months. Find out what darioles are here or here.
Lady Tarryn’s wedding cakes
From: The Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook by Jennifer Graham
4 cups plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
500 g/1.1 lbs butter, chopped
2 cups milk
4 cups castor sugar
300 g/10 oz white chocolate, chopped
4 eggs, whisked
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 155 c/310 F. Lightly grease 20 dariole moulds.
Sift flour and baking powder together into a large bowl. Make a well in the centre. Set aside.
Put butter, milk, castor sugar and white chocolate into a metal bowl and place over a large saucepan of simmering water. Stir continuously using a flat-bottomed wooden spoon until chocolate has melted and sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.
Use a rubber spatula to fold the eggs and vanilla extract into the cooled chocolate mixture. Pour this mixture into the well in the flour and fold together until well combined.
Divide the mixture evenly between the dariole moulds. Bake for 30 minutes or until a fine skewer inserted comes out clean. Place moulds on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes before turning out. Allow to cool for a further 30 minutes before frosting.
