by Victoria Pfeifer, CashewDate.com
These apple-carrot cupcakes contain only natural and vegan ingredients, gluten-free, sugar-free, oil-free. You can treat yourself with these cupcakes even for breakfast, as they are absolutely guilt-free, very satisfying, nutritious and keep your energy levels up for a long time during the day!
Taste-wise they are perfectly sweet, dense, moist, fluffy and have a lot of texture going on.
Fun and easy to make! These apple-carrot cupcakes served with a cup of tea or coffee create a cosy, homey ambience at your table and also great to bring as a healthy vegan sweet with you to any event!
How to make these Apple-Carrot Cupcakes
Wet ingredients
Apples and Carrots are the base for these cupcakes. As a sweetener I have used dates in this recipe, which help to stick the ingredients together as well. Apples and carrots add a lot of moisture along with almond butter, which is not only a source of healthy fat in this recipe, but also almond butter adds to the softness, moisture-content and fluffiness level!
In terms of plant milk, I have added almond milk to this recipe, however, any other unsweetened plant milk of choice will do.
Dry Ingredients
There is no actual flour in these cupcakes. I used quick oats combined with some ground almonds and a little bit of gluten-free baking powder. However, if you happen to have old-fashioned rolled oat flakes (which are larger in size) just process them into smaller pieces or a flour to get finer cupcake consistency.
Vegan Psyllium Egg
Psyllium also is known as husks of the Plantago ovata plant’s seeds. They are very fibrous and swell in water into jelly within a few minutes. It is my favourite egg replaces because it is natural and works so well in binding together any kind of food from baked goods to fried patties. 1 “egg” equals 1 teaspoon of ground psyllium husk with 3 tablespoons of water. I have used 2 of these “vegan eggs” in this recipe.
Sugar-Free Strawberry Frosting
I like keeping frostings simple, healthy, not too sweet and easy to make. There is no need to create any complicated frostings for these cupcakes because they are already delicious on their own. But this strawberry frosting makes the cupcakes complete and even more delicious. Just two fruits- bananas and strawberries blended and cooled for an hour in a fridge make it a healthy and light, fat-free and sugar-free frosting!
Ingredients
Makes 6-8 large maxi sized muffins or 12-14 mini muffins:
- 100 g almonds
- 200 g carrots
- 200 g apples sweet and sour (I used Gala)
- 7 small dates
- 2 tbsp. almond butter
- 2 tsp. ground psyllium husks
- pinch of salt
- 1 tbsp. cinnamon
- 130 g. almond or cashew milk
- 100 g. quick oats
- 1 tsp. gluten-free baking powder
- Juice of 1/2 lemon
- 25 g. raisins
Frosting:
- 80 g strawberries
- 100 g banana
Recipe Instructions
- Grind almonds in the food processor and set aside;
- Preheat the oven to 180C and prepare a psyllium egg: mix in water 2 tsp. of ground psyllium husk with 3 tbsp. of water, stir well until well mixed and looks like jelly;
- Add to the food processor carrots, apples and dates and process until they are minced, not blended;
- Once the carrots, apples and dates are minced and mixed well, add to them all the other ingredients including ground almonds and mix well (by hand or using a food processor until well combined and looks like a cake batter);
- Put the muffin paper cases into the muffin tray and spread the batter equally between each case and bake in the oven over 180C for 45 minutes.
- While the cupcakes are baking, blend the bananas and strawberries until creamy and place in the fridge to cool;
- Once the cupcakes are ready, let them cool down completely and spread the frosting over each cupcake!
You may add berries or other decoration on top! Enjoy!
About CashewDate.com
Hello everyone, my name is Victoria, I am honoured to share this recipe with you, CrueltyFreeMalta.com blog readers. I create healthy, gluten-free and sugar-free recipes on my blog CashewDate.com, which are easy to prepare, using just staples from your vegan pantry and also made from whole foods! Get even more healthy and delicious easy vegan gluten-free recipes on CashewDate.com to cook for you and your family. I will be happy to get in touch with you on my food blog!
