Sneaky Cupcakes

At the Children’s Book Swap Event that I attended last week, I sold a number of Fruit and Veggie Cupcakes and had a couple of requests for recipes, so here over the next few days are a few of my tried and tested methods for making what I like to describe as sneaky cakes - where you can shove in a whole lot of goodness in without the kids knowing about it. It's also not a bad idea to consider individual cupcakes for kids birthdays. You can still decorate them to theme, but you normally end up with a lot less left overs and waste.

Each recipe makes around 12, but you will get variations on that depending on how big your cake cases are and the consistency of each cake mix. You can make all of these cakes without an egg if you want them to be completely free of animal products. However, two things tend to happen if you're not using egg and you have decide if you can live with it. Either you have a smaller, crumblier cake, or you have a denser cake that is harder to get our of it's wrapper.

Standard Content

115g of plain flour

115g of sugar

75ml of oil

1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

Butternut Squash and Ginger

Use golden caster sugar and sunflower/rapeseed oil for this recipe.

Take 120g of thinly sliced Butternut Squash and a large finger sized amount of root ginger, very finely sliced. Lay on a baking tray with a touch of oil and bake at 190C for around 30 mins, with a loose foil cover, until soft (turn your oven down 180C) Add to a blender or mash until a chunky salsa like texture (you can puree to smooth but this can make your mix a little on the sloppy side.

In a bowl add the sugar, oil and squash mix, and 1 egg if you are using. Beat together to avoid curdling then slowly shift in the flour and baking powder, making a figure eight shape until combined. Take a tablespoon and put heaped amounts into cake cases. These cakes are perfect with a soft creamy icing (see below), but he you choose not to ice, add a little sprinkling of ground ginger to the tops of your cakes at this stage.

Bake in the oven for 15mins, turn out on to wire rack to cool.

Simple Dairy Free Icing.

Using a Vegan or Dairy Free Spread is an incredibly easy way to make a simple soft icing for most cakes. Spread is a lot smoother than hard butter and you don't have to spend as much time beating out the lumps. Measurements are always a bit hit and miss and will depend on the texture you want. I normally start off with a heaped spoon of spread and two heaped spoons of icing sugar, with a small squeeze of lemon, and go from there.

Tomorrow: Apple and Courgette Cakes

Courgette Cupcakes with Pistachio and Lime

Adapted from an existing recipe in the Susannah Blake's Cupcake Heaven (see below) I have made a few adjustments to ensure that this is a full vegan recipe, yet still holds together without the addition of an egg. The tangy lime topping is what really makes this an usual cupcake variation.

Image: zmkstudio / FreeDigitalPhotos.net


Oven 160C, makes 12

Seeds from 3 cardamom pods, crushed
70ml of ground nut oil
50g of caster sugar and 50 g of dark brown sugar
100g of courgette, coarsely grated
50g of chopped pistachio nuts (I do these until a fine, almost breadcrumb like texture in the blender, but chopping will suffice)
120g of self raising flour
Half a teaspoon of baking powder

Mix together crushed seeds, oil and sugar until thick and sandy in texture. Add the courgette and nuts, then sift in the flour and baking powder.

Spoon into paper cases and cook for 20 minutes, checking after 15. Skewer centre of cake to ensure it's done, turn out onto wire rack to cool.

To decorate:

Finely grated zest and juice of two limes
85g of caste sugar
50g of shelled pistachio chopped (more coarsely than for the cupcake mix)

Gradually heat the zest, juice and sugar in a saucepan until sugar is dissolved (rolling the lime under hand for a few seconds before cutting and squeezing makes juicing easier).

Whack the heat right up and boil rapidly for about a minute, before removing from the heat. Allow to cool slightly, stir in the nuts than as it begins to thicken, spool onto the cupcakes.

The original version and other great cupcake recipes can be found in Cupcake Heaven, available via Amazon.

Pumpkin Parkin

This is an adaptation of a Banana Bread recipe that I've used a couple of times and has always gone down really well. It is very simple to make too. If the flesh of your pumpkin is particularly squishy, you could use it neat, but I think that a quick roasting (for about 20 minutes on 200C) with a generous sprinkle of cinnamon, really helps bring out the sweetness of the pumpkin, so I'd advise you do this anyway. Plus you'll need the heat for melting the butter.

Ingredients

• 285g/10oz plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 110g/4oz butter, plus extra for greasing
• 225g/8oz golden caster sugar
• 2 free-range eggs
• flesh of one small/medium pumpkin (aprox 200g), roasted and mashed with about 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• Squeezed juice of half a lemon
• Optional pinch of grated nutmeg

Method

Cream the butter, sugar and still warm pumpkin until melted and runny. If you still have any large or hard lumps of pumpkin, blitz in a food processor or use a had blender to smooth out. You can still have a few smaller lumps in, this won't affect the finished product.

Shift together the flour, bicarb or soda and nutmeg and add a little to the pumpkin/butter mix, then add a little of the beaten egg. Take turns with each until they are all combined. Finally add the lemon juice and stir.

Pour out into a small greased loaf tin and bake in an oven pre-heated to 180C/350F/Gas 4, for about 50 minutes. Should be golden and well risen, use a skewer to check that it is done through. Turn out onto wire rack.

You can icing if you like, an aromatic orange flower water icing goes particularly well, or perhaps even toast up some pumpkin and sunflower seeds, then glaze them onto the cooled loaf using honey or syrup.


Image: Arvind Balaraman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net