cupcakes

Cupcakes! and brownies tailored to your dietary needs

I’m going to give you a heads-up and let you know this post is going to be a bit long.

Also, you’re probably going to think that I’m totally crazy when I tell you what’s in these cupcakes. But, trust me, you’d never know these are healthy.

I know. Some of you are thinking of clicking away from this post right now. Healthy cupcakes? Who needs those? But I worked really hard to find & develop a recipe that doesn’t taste healthy. One of the things that makes these cupcakes better than most is that there are far less refined ingredients than you’d usually find. In fact, the bulk of these cupcakes are made with whole foods.

 

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Honey Yogurt Cupcakes with Strawberry Filling

How the heck did it get to be Wednesday already? Good grief. And don’t get me started about how it’s already October.

Anyway, I suppose that’s neither here nor there. What’s important is cupcakes. These were cupcakes I made for Little Man’s birthday party. I still have tons of recipes to share from that, so I’m just going to keep plowing through. Whether you like it or not.

I adapted this recipe slightly from a Nourishing Meals recipe (no longer available), which was adapted from another recipe. Also, I took no pictures except the final product, so apologies on that.

This recipe is gluten-free, which makes it susceptible to drying out. For that reason, I made these only a few hours before the party. If you need to store these longer, you’ll need to freeze them.

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Little Man’s Angry Birds Birthday Party

Friends, we do not mess around over here when it comes to birthday parties.

Ever since my mom came to visit with her iPad, getting my son hooked on Angry Birds, I’ve been planning this Angry Bird-themed party. So, like 4-5 months of planning.

I don’t know what it is about kids’ parties that make me go a little nutty and start taking things beyond a normal level, but it’s just fun. Well, until it’s the week of the party and I’m swamped with things to make and get ready, and I can’t tone it down because I’m just too invested.

That being said, I did better than last year in that I wasn’t frantically frosting cupcakes as the guests arrived. I was plating the last of the appetizers as people got here, but other than that I was able to join the party from the get-go.

However, in similar fashion to last year, I was testing out recipes like a crazy person for months in advance. This year it was even more important because we had some food allergies to deal with. So I had to find and/or develop recipes that were gluten-free, refined sugar-free, dairy-free, and egg-free. Woah. So I tested out a lot of recipes, a few of which were so bad they went straight into the trash. Anyway. More on that later. (more…)

Dessert For Dudes: Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Bridget over at Bake at 350 does this thing every June called “Dessert for Dudes.” It’s sort of in honor of Father’s Day, but she does it all month.

I thought it was a cool idea, so I asked Hubs what his favorite dessert was. He doesn’t have one favorite, but he listed off several that he really likes. One of the top ones was carrot cake.

When I thought about it, I couldn’t remember ever having made a carrot cake before.

My friend Emma made a raw carrot cake for her daughter Olive’s first birthday, which had no sugar. I tasted a bit of it and it was delicious. So I decided to try my hand at naturally sweetened carrot cake. (more…)