This one has been a while in the making.  Abby and I were baking a batch of cupcakes every weekend there for a while, and then Christmas happened.  And New Year.  And then going back to school and work just made us both really tired.  And then there were the Star Wars movies to watch … over and over again!

Anyway, we finally had some time this weekend where both Abby and I felt energetic enough to bake together again.  Now, I’m quite happy baking when I’m tired, but Abby is often more content just reading or drawing or doing some other arty-crafty thing by herself.  Or playing with the cats.  But all the stars aligned and so I bring you ‘Lemon blueberry cupcakes’.  

Again, a recipe that was from Cupcake Wars.  Actually, literally, this was the recipe that was on Cupcake Wars – we found it on the Food Network site (see here).  But, me being the special snowflake and all, needed to make it gluten and dairy free.  So, we used gluten-free all purpose flour, shortening instead of butter, and unsweetened plain coconut milk yogurt instead of sour cream.  I was a bit dubious as to how it would all work out, but you can judge for yourselves!

On the left is our creation – on the right is the ‘official’ looking cupcake from the Food Network site.  So they look a little different.  Abby and I had a few issues with the cream cheese frosting – I don’t think that non-dairy cream cheese works totally the same as ‘normal’ cream cheese and the frosting took a huge amount of powdered sugar to thicken up to the stage we got it.  But the texture of the cake was really nice and tangy, and we added some blueberry/lemon jam in the frosting, just to highlight the flavors a bit more.

This one was a bit of a stretch to make into a fruit of the Spirit.  Abby calls it the ‘patience’ cupcakes because ‘it takes a long time to grow blueberries’.  Does anyone know if that’s true or not?  Even if it isn’t, we definitely required patience (and an emergency trip to the grocery store for more powdered sugar) in making at least the frosting!

So, Abby’s now got the idea of making all the fruit of the Spirit cupcakes we’ve made into full cakes.  Wish us luck (and any friends who are near us, be prepared for many gifts of cake …!).

Until next time, enjoy cooking at home … with kids!

Sarah