Blueberry and Vanilla Cupcakes

I was invited to lunch with some vegan friends recently, so decided to take along my zucchini falafel for a snack and these blueberry cupcakes for dessert. Lynette, who was hosting the lunch at her beautiful home, was the one who gave me her ticket to the Cupcake Richard vegan baking class. So I promised I'd bring her some cupcakes in return.
 

 These could easily pass as muffins as well, but I wanted to top them with a delicious coconut cream frosting and pretty blueberries.

 

 Ingredients:

1 ¾ cup cake flour
2 ½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
100ml coconut oil
120ml apple sauce
125ml warm water
15 ml lemon juice (juice of half a lemon)
3-4 vanilla pods
1/4 cup water
1 cup + 3 tbs icing sugar
250g blueberries

Begin by making a vanilla syrup. Scrape the vanilla pods and add the seeds and empty husks to the a small pot along with the icing sugar and 1/4 cup water. Boil until the sugar is dissolved and the syrup is fairly thick. Remove the vanilla husks with a fork (don't touch the syrup, it's very hot!)

Preheat your oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Line a cupcake pan with twelve paper cupcake wrappers. Sift all the dry ingredients together and mix thoroughly. Add the coconut oil, apple sauce and vanilla syrup and mix well with a metal spoon until fully combined.

Add the lemon juice to the warm water and pour half into the batter. Stir until it is completely incorporated, then add the remaining lemon water and repeat.

Pour the batter into the cupcake pan, you can fill the wrappers about 3/4 of the way as they don't rise too much. Drop about 5 blueberries into each cupcake and using a wooden skewer, gently push them into the batter.





Bake for 20 minutes, then allow to cool completely on a cake rack. Don't ice them if they are still warm, as the coconut cream will melt.

For the frosting, drain a can of coconut cream of all its water. I use my wooden skewer to poke two holes through the cream and then pour out the water that is usually trapped at the bottom. Add the cream, 1/2 cup blueberries and 3 tbs icing sugar to a bowl and combine using a stick blender. Allow to set in the fridge for about an hour.

Note: I let my frosting set overnight and the beautiful lilac colour turned a little brown from oxidation. Next time I'll try adding a little lemon juice to avoid this, although I'm not sure if that will make it curdle. It might be worth experimenting with a little bit separately. 

Once you have iced your cupcakes, sprinkle them with a few more blueberries and enjoy sharing them with your friends!

xxx