These cupcakes make a super nutritious and delicious treat for Easter.
Incredibly more-ish - yet completely guilt-free – these beauties are packed with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, and contain zero refined-sugar. Made with a base of beetroot, raw cacao, and coconut, these delights are beautifully simple to rustle up, and make for a sumptuous yet wholesome alternative to the additive-packed chocolate that will be surrounding you over Easter.
Beetroot is one of April’s best seasonal vegetables: known for increasing blood flow, beets are high in immune-boosting vitamin C, fibre, and essential minerals like potassium (essential for healthy nerve and muscle function) and manganese (hugely beneficial for bone, liver, kidney, and pancreas health).
Raw cacao is packed full of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and is also high in manganese, speeding up your metabolism and leaving you feeling energised. Coconut is high good fats i.e. Medium-Chain-Triglycerides or MCTs; these fatty acids are burned by our bodies as energy, rather than stored as fat. Coconut is my absolute favourite healthy baking ingredient. Its dried flesh makes a wonderfully nourishing alternative to regular flour; the oil replaces butter almost 1:1 in most conventional recipes; and the milk and/or cream can be used to make a fabulous vegan or paleo frosting.
To make them extra-specially Easter themed, decorate them with sugared flowers, or even fresh flowers such as primroses for an extra touch. Or why not make your own raw chocolate eggs or flowers for some homemade decorations? Check out my raw chocolate recipe at: www.formstudios.co.uk/blog/valentine-treats-raw-chocolates
Breaking your Lent will never have been more satisfying!
(makes 12 cupcakes)
1. Preheat the oven to 200 C.
2. Line a cupcake tin with 12 cases.
3. Blitz the steamed and cooled beetroot in a food processor
4. Beat the eggs, oil, coconut milk, honey (or maple/date syrup) and sea salt
5. Add the beetroot to the egg mixture.
6. Mix the cacao powder and buckwheat flour together in a large separate bowl and then stir these dry ingredients in the baking powder and salt.
7. Next add the desiccated coconut, 1 tbsp at a time. Then once combined, add the dry ingredients into the egg and beetroot mixture. Stir well.
8. Scoop about 2 tbsp of the batter into each cupcake tin. Don’t be alarmed that the mixture might be quite wet – this will mean the cakes will be wonderfully moist. Place on a middle shelf and bake for 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
NB. You can also make a healthy frosting with raw cacao, coconut cream and vanilla essence, or just a simple glaze of agave nectar and powdered cinnamon. But they also taste great just plain!
