Healthy Very Vanilla Cupcakes

It's time to celebrate another birthday! Be prepared for a few more birthday posts coming soon, as there are quite a few August birthdays (including our very own Papaya Crumpet!). My dearest friend Rose wanted something 'vanilla' so I made her vanilla cupcakes topped with vanilla cream cheese frosting. All white (technically, off-white) and classy.

Healthy Very Vanilla Cupcakes

Somewhere on this blog, I have previously mentioned my back luck with cupcakes. Traditional butter-laden versions and healthy versions alike have problems when I attempt to bake cupcakes. Usually the top is covered in holes or the texture is heavy and dense. But this vanilla cupcake recipe seemed to end my streak of bad luck! We can celebrate this too, haha!

Piping Cream Cheese Frosting Roses on Healthy Very Vanilla Cupcakes

This recipe was so quick to put together and yielded round cupcakes that rose above their liners. Only one mixing bowl needed! No problems were encountered when I switched these to make regular sized cupcakes instead of mini ones. I was so excited to see they looked like normal cupcakes when pulled out of the oven. No need for extra fiddling with the oven temperature and watching them like hawks. One toothpick check and they were finished~

Healthy Very Vanilla Cupcakes

This is a considerably healthy cupcake because of the low amount of sugar and oil. For one loaf or a dozen cupcakes, I always stay under half a cup of sugar. Since these vanilla cupcakes were for friends, I used half a cup. However Eat Good 4 Life noted that a third cup is sufficient if adding icing. She even used whole wheat flour, which would up the amount of fibre but in sacrifice for a darker colour. Either way, I approve of this recipe and would try it again! It is a cupcake I could eat without knowing it will completely sabotage my diet.
 
The texture wasn't the lightest and fluffiest cupcake I've had (check out Papaya Crumpet's earl grey cupcakes if you're looking for a fluffy cupcake), but they were acceptable. Maybe this is due to the fact I only had half a cup of pastry flour to use so some all purpose flour was mixed in. Vanilla paste or extra vanilla bean would make these even better. That's how these cupcakes can become 'very vanilla'.

Healthy Very Vanilla Cupcakes with Rose-shaped Icing

I kept with a 'rose' theme with the gifts I was giving her, and icing these cupcakes using my Wilton 2D Closed Star tip was a no brainer. Plus, it gives the cupcakes that 'professional cupcakery' look. I used a traditional cream cheese frosting, which was the only unhealthy part. No recipe is included below because I kind of just made it from scratch. Mixing the cream cheese and butter by hand (because poor Coconut Crumpet doesn't even own a hand mixer...much less a beautiful pink Kitchen Aid...) and adding icing sugar until the consistency I wanted was achieved. To be honest, I think I must've added too much because it was a bit too sweet. Thank goodness the cupcakes themselves weren't already filled with sugar!

Healthy Very Vanilla Cupcakes

Yield: 11 large cupcakes

Adapted from Eat Good 4 Life

Ingredients

• 1 egg
• ¼ cup coconut oil, melted
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
• ½ cup pastry flour
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• A few grinds of Himalayan pink sea salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350˚F. Line a muffin pan with paper liners.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together egg, oil, milk, vanilla, and sugar until well combined.
3. Sift in flours, baking powder, and baking soda. Add a few grinds of Himalayan pink sea salt.
4. Fold batter until just combined. Over mixing yields large holes in the cupcake!
5. Scoop batter into prepared pan using a cupcake scoop or ice cream scoop.
6. Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean or with just a few crumbs.
7. Cool completely before frosting.

Love from Coconut Crumpet's Corner ♡

Earl Grey Cupcake

Fluffy inside + pointy top :)

Earl Grey Cupcakes and Strawberry Shortcakes

This is a great cupcake for many occasions-teacher's appreciation, thank-you-gifts, birthday cupcakes, or tea parties. I first encountered the cake on the menu of Le Petit Culliere, a newly opened afternoon-tea place in Vancouver. Before I actually went recipe-hunting, I always thought these cakes actually had  tea leaves in them-dry tea leaves and cake dough? Hmmm................

It turns out the real tea flavor comes from a milk-tea mixture (the method is just like how you make milk tea!) added in the cake. While it retains its fluffiness it also has a nice smell to it.

A little note: cupcakes are not muffins, they're more toward the light and fluffy side (the less holes in the cake the better) while muffins have more air and taste a little drier than cupcakes. 

Bailey's Chocolate Cupcakes

Bailey's Chocolate Cupcakes with Bailey's Buttercream Frosting

Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, I present to you Bailey's cupcakes! My experience with this recipe has many ups and downs. Let me explain...

The first time I made this recipe, I accidentally doubled the amount of milk. Luckily, the 8 inch cake turned out perfectly fine. Now the second time I made it, I was too lazy to use applesauce so I replaced all the 'fat' with yogurt. That resulted in a very dense and hard cake. Not too good. Today, my luck has not been the greatest. (No four-leaf clover from the leprechaun for me?) Only after three trials and nearly 2 hours later did an acceptable cupcake come out of the oven. This was an unexpected blow to my baking ego, I suppose its a reminder to stay humble, haha!

Three trials later

1st trial: burnt.

2nd trial: too low of an oven temperature, expanded before becoming fulled cooked.

3rd trial: followed oven temperature in recipe + used a foil tent to shield the tops. 

Since I was baking these as gifts, I could not use burnt or ugly cupcakes. My family will take care of those...

Nevertheless, these cupcakes will please 'adults' and those who love Irish cream. Fudgey and rich in flavour, a tastey (and healthy!) cupcake for anytime of year!

Bailey's Chocolate Cupcakes

Adapted from Skinnytaste 

Yield: 8 large cupcakes

Ingredients:

• ½ cup sugar
• 1 cup flour
• 7 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
• 1 egg
• ½ cup stout
• ½ unsweetened apple sauce
• ½ cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1½ tbsp oil

 Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a cupcake tin with 12 liners.
2. In a large bowl sift together all the dry ingredients; sugar, flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda, and espresso powder. 
3. In a medium bowl combine the wet ingredients (egg through canola oil) and beat until smooth.
4. With a mixer, slowly add the sifted flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined.
5. Pour about 3 heaping tbsp into each cupcake liner and bake 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

*Tip: If using a small convection oven, you may want to cover the top with some tin foil for the first 10-15 minutes and uncover to bake for the last few. This will prevent the tops from burning too fast.

Decoration Choices:

1. Bailey's Whipped Cream - Using an electric mixer, whip the whipping cream until stiff peaks. Add 1 or 2 tbsp of Bailey's and mix until incorporated. This works well for decorating cakes.
2. Bailey's Buttercream Frosting - For 8 cupcakes, beat ¼ cup of room temperature butter until light and fluffy. Sift in 1 cup of icing sugar until incorporated. Then add 2 tbsp of bailey and mix until pipping consistency is achieved.

Love from Coconut Crumpet's Corner ♡