Quick! Cupcakes needed!!!! Easy to make, easy to eat. Sweet and citrus-y with a hint of cinnamon its….

Orange & Cinnamon Cupcakes!

• Half a cup of apple puree
• Three dessertspoons of a sunflower oil that is suitable for frying or melted coconut oil
• A scant teaspoon of apple cyder vinegar
• The zest of a unwaxed org orange
• Five drops of food grade orange oil or a teaspoon of extract
• A third of a cup of fresh squeezed orange juice
• A quarter cup of non diary milk
• Half a cup of raw dark agave
• Scant two thirds of ground almonds
• Two third cups of fine maize meal
• A third of a cup of buckwheat flour
• A teaspoon of baking powder
• Half a teaspoon of bread soda
• A teaspoon of cornstarch
• A teaspoon of vanilla powder/ good extract / two pods
• A quarter teaspoon of cinnamon

Glaze

• Two dessertspoons org coconut oil
• One and a half dessertspoons cashew nut butter
• Three dessertspoons date syrup
• Three dessertspoons orange juice

To make the glaze just mash the coconut oil and cashew nut butter together. Next mash the date syrup and orange juice into the coconut oil and cashew nut butter. Ta-da! Glaze!

Cupcake Method

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F and line a cupcake tray. The recipe makes twelve! Grab two bowls. In your first mix all the wet ingredients including the orange zest. Give a bit of a whisk.

Now mix all your dry ingredients. It is worth sieving your soda, baking powder and cornstarch as lumps of these in your cupcakes is unpleasant.

Pour your dry ingredients into your wet. Gently fold it all together. The bread soda/ bicarbonate will react with the cyder vinegar and start to create bubbles. If you are too rough you will  knock the air right out.

Fill your cupcake holders to the top, vegan gluten free goodies tend to not rise as much. Now there are tricks around this. *

They take twenty minutes in my fan oven at 180C/ 350F. They should be golden and darker at the edges. If unsure stick a skewer in one- it should come out dry.

Leave to cool completely before putting the glaze on.

Any ways hope you try them out! Xs Aissa

*My little liners are for traditional faery cakes- much smaller than a cupcake or muffin, but cupcake tins seem to only come in big sizes now. This means the cupcakes spread out a little – not up. The trick is shown in my ramekin cake- this was filled two thirds of the way up- but look at the rise! Because it could only go up!

A note on sweetness

I like to switch about what I sweeten my baked goods with. I stay away from refined sugars and corn syrup !! Eek- not healthy. I am all for moderation and variety. Rapadura/ sucucant sugar are pure dried cane juice. This means the molasses is not removed, and some minerals and vitamins remain in the sugar. In this recipe I used apple puree, agave and dates these have fructose as opposed to glucose. Too much fructose is not good for you either! That said they contain some nutrition e.g the dates have a good number of minerals- more than can be said for white sugar!