Birthday [Carrot Cake] Cupcakes

Thursday was my birthday, and I made myself a special treat. Carrot cupcakes. Free of grains, gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, almonds, refined sugar...

This was my first experience with chestnut flour - baking or eating - and I must say, it will definitely not be my last. (I'm glad I signed up to get a small bag of it every couple of months through Amazon.com Subscribe & Save!) The cupcakes turned out moist, soft, and cinnamon-y delicious. Chestnut flour has swag.

I frosted the cupcakes with a quick glaze-style icing I made from palm shortening, shredded coconut, maple syrup, local honey, and coconut oil. I spooned that on while it was still liquid, then topped them with leftover grated carrot and organic dried coconut flakes and left to set.
These were good by themselves, better enjoyed with a cup of coffee, and best with a bowl of coconut ice cream on the side!
The recipe made ten cupcakes, and it was the perfect amount to share with my husband and enjoy my birthday. I ate more than half of those ten in about twenty-four hours. It was my birthday and I indulged.

I saw the recipe featured last month at Brittany Angell's gluten-free, dairy-free site Real Sustenance, and bookmarked it for my special day. If you have never checked out Brittany's blog, head over there now and look at her recipes. I have made two of them now, these cupcakes and the Samoa cookies (original recipe). She is very talented and I'm so glad to have found her blog!

I made the cupcakes according to Brittany's recipe, with a few ingredient changes, less sweetener, and a misstep in mixing. It is a forgiving recipe, because they still turned out great! I give her all credit, however I only will list the ingredients I used and the steps I took to make these cupcakes.

[Grain-Free, Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Egg-Free, Soy-Free, Almond-Free]

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Recipe credit: Brittany Angell, RealSustenance.com

What you need:

• 1/4 cup natural applesauce (no sweeteners added)
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1/4 cup grapeseed oil
• 1 teaspoon gluten-free, alcohol-free vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cup Chestnut flour
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon 
• 1/4 cup Sucanat
• 2 teaspoon baking powder 
• 1 cup washed, peeled, grated organic carrots (I minced mine in the small food processor)
• 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar*

What you do:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Line muffin tin with 10 paper liners.

Measure wet ingredients (applesauce, coconut milk, grapeseed oil, vanilla, and vinegar) into a large bowl, stir together to combine.

Add in the dry ingredients (chestnut flour, cinnamon, sucanat, baking powder) and blend with a spatula. Pour in grated carrots and gently fold together until batter is evenly mixed.

Scoop the batter into muffin cups and place into the oven. Bake for 30 minutes.

(Cupcakes will be finished when toothpick comes out clean.)

These cupcakes are delicious. It was fun sharing them and hearing the reactions - "full of flavor," and "If I hadn't been told already that these are gluten-free and dairy-free, I wouldn't have known!" "Yummy!"

I'm happy to report to you, grain-free does not mean delicious dessert free. You can come up with a special birthday treat for any diet. Do you have a favorite annual celebratory treat that needs converting or replacing, to be safe and healthy for you and/or loved ones? Do share and I'd love to brainstorm with you about substitutions and new ideas. And check out RealSustenance.com for more great ideas.

Playing around with cupcakes and my Gerbera daisy plate

It was a treat to find my Gerbera daisy plant blooming on my birthday.
I thought it didn't make it through the late ice storm we had,
but it's got two beautfiul red flowers on it now!

Another birthday, another year of life and many things to be thankful for. Every year I am a little surprised at how different a birthday is as an adult. I don't know why it's taking me such a long time to adapt to that difference from childhood. But it is better, especially when you have a best friend/spouse and a precious baby girl to spend it with. 28 years of life accomplished, and so many more to come!

GFCF Egg-Free Soy-Free Sugar Cookies

Yesterday afternoon I had the best time baking sugar cookies with my friend Holly! I've possibly consumed too many cookies in the last twenty-four hours, but you only live once! I'm doing much better on my diet restrictions than I did last year during {Thanksgiving and Christmas}. We made these sugar cookies without gluten, dairy, eggs, or soy, and they taste great! Then we frosted and decorated them just like we did growing up with moms that were into baking. All I have to say about this is: I love baking new allergy-friendly recipes that turn out!

A little sample of the cookies

Here is the recipe:

Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies (Revised)

Author unknown

1 cup rice flour

3/4 cup tapioca flour

3/4 cup cornstarch

2 1/2 teaspoons xanthan gum

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

1 cup shortening

1 egg or 1/4 cup liquid egg substitute (*I used Ener-G Egg Replacer)

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/4 cup (or more) potato starch flour for kneading

Colored sugars, sprinkles, or frosting for decorating (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flours, cornstarch, xanthan gum, and salt. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, cream the sugar and shortening. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients, mixing enough to combine. The dough should form a soft ball. (*At this point, the dough was very crumbly and dry. If you run into this problem, add rice milk in small amounts until moist and workable.) With your hands, knead in enough of the potato starch flour to make the dough easy to handle and roll out.

Working with half at a time, place a piece of plastic wrap over the ball and roll out to about 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes and place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. (Without it, the cookies stuck to the sheet.) Decorate with colored sugars before baking, or use frosting to decorate after baking if desired. (With this dough you can use all the scraps. Just scrape them together and roll out again. They will not get tough.)

Bake for about 13 minutes, but check for done-ness at 10 minutes. Cool very slightly before removing from cookie sheet. Makes 3 dozen 2 1/2-inch cookies.

More pretty cookies

Here is the glaze recipe:

Basic Icing

1 cup powdered sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract (or peppermint, orange, almond, etc.)

Rice milk, fruit juice or liquer (enough to make it desired consistency)

*For chocolate frosting, add 2 Tbs unsweetened cocoa powder

Whisk together sugar (and cocoa if using), extract and milk by gradually adding liquid until the frosting is consistency you need for your cookies. My two bowls (one of white vanilla, and one of pink almond) came out more like a glaze or icing than a frosting. It was very pretty, had a great tackiness for embellishing, and sweet.

Photo credits all to my husband. I especially love this one!

Angels, stars, snowmen... white pearls, sugar crystals... red snowflake plate... I'm in a Christmas mood!