Easter is associated with many things – the life of Jesus and the religious festival, Spring, chicks and, of course, chocolate! Chocolate eggs became a thing in the early 19th century, first made in France and Germany and then by Cadbury’s in the UK.
Eggs have been part of a spring festival way before Christianity used them to symbolise the resurrection. Used to represent rebirth or awakening, eggs appeared in pagan, Egyptian and Hindu mythology and have long been given as spring gifts, often beautifully decorated.
So chocolate and eggs are synonymous with this time of year. But what if you can’t or don’t eat either of these? Dairy-free and vegan chocolate is widely available so that’s not an issue for many people. However, if you follow a particular dietary programme for health like Overcoming MS then chocolate in its hard form is out due to the high level of saturated fat. So what to do (apart from sulk?) – make cake!
These chocolate cupcakes contain lots of cocoa or cacao powder which doesn’t have the added cocoa butter (which is where the fat is). It does contain all the lovely phytonutrients though, especially if you used raw cacao rather than cocoa. The frosting is a tasty and healthy alternative to heavy butter icing, and as it includes sweet potato you also get all those extra phytonutrients too. Which makes these cupcakes even better and so you can eat loads……well maybe not, but you get the super tasty chocolate hit as well as goodness, so that can’t be a bad thing!
I made these cakes and frosting on my live Facebook cooking session this week; here is the recording in case you missed it and fancied a watch. Plus the full recipe is below with all the ingredients and method. I hope you enjoy them – please let me know how you get on.
Wishing you a very Happy Easter.
Chocolate cupcakes with sweet potato chocolate frosting
Ingredients
- 1 medium sweet potato baked in its skin or steamed
- 225 grams self-raising four wholemeal or gluten free
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 75 grams cocoa or cacao powder
- pinch salt
- 370 ml soya milk or other dairy-free milk
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice or cider vinegar
- 80 ml olive oil
- 120 grams coconut sugar or very dark brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
for the frosting
- sweet potato prepped as above
- 4 tablespoons maple syrup or other liquid sweetener
- 3-4 tablespoons cacao or cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- fresh or freeze-dried raspberries to decorate optional
Instructions
- Before you make the cake, bake the sweet potato in its skin or steam. This can be done the day before and kept in the fridge.
- Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/Gas4. Line a muffin tin with wrappers.
- Add the lemon juice to the soya milk and leave to curdle for a few minutes.
- Place the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt together in a large bowl and mix well to combine.
- In a separate bowl add the coconut sugar, oil and vanilla essence. Pour in the curdled soya milk and mix well to combine.
- Pour the wet mix into the dry and quickly stir to combine – do not overmix and try to be ilght-handed but thorough. This should only take 10-12 seconds. Time is of the essence to get the raising agents to work iin the oven.
- Quickly distribute the mix out into the prepared tin. Once the mix has all gone, tap the tin on the worktop and place in the oven. Bake for 18-20 minutes – the cakes are ready when risen and firm but bouncy on top. Test with a tooth pick – if it comes out clean they're ready.
- Transfer the cakes to a cooling rack. Once cooled, they can be frozen for another time or decorated with the frosting.
To make the frosting
- Place the cooked sweet potato, maply syrup, cocoa powder and vanilla essence into a small blender and whizz for a few seconds to combine. Test the flavour and add more syrup or cocoa as needed and blend again
- Spread the mix over the top of the cakes and decorate with raspberries if desired. Keep in the fridge and eat within 3-4 days
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