I will admit to dragging my birthday out each year for so much longer than the one day that it pretty much turns into a birthday week. This year’s birthday week began with the Healthy Oatmeal Pancakes I posted a few days ago, and it continued to include a family dinner, Thai food and after-dinner drinks with friends, and a trip to the famed Sprinkles Bakery for birthday cupcakes.
A few days ago, my friend Sarah treated me to birthday cupcakes to-go from Sprinkles. It was my first time at the bakery, and I was super excited to try their vegan red velvet cupcakes. (Sarah ordered chocolate marshmallow.) The cupcake was pretty good… I thought the frosting was extremely over-the-top sweet, but I liked the actual cake. And thus the Sprinkles cupcakes inspired today’s creation:
Healthy red velvet cupcakes!
Note: the red velvet cupcakes in the photos are frosted with my Healthy Cream Cheese Frosting, which I swirled onto each cupcake with a piping bag. If you don’t have a piping bag, you can use a plastic bag with a small piece of one corner cut off. Or just spread the frosting onto the cupcakes. I am partial to cream cheese frosting on red velvet cupcakes, but feel free to use any other frosting recipe if you wish.
Healthy Red Velvet Cupcakes
- 1/2 cup spelt or all-purpose flour (or Bob’s gf plus 1/4 tsp xanthan gum)(65g)
- 3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (15g) (not Dutch)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 cup xylitol or sugar of choice (90g)
- handful mini chocolate chips, optional
- 1/4 cup mayo-style spread, such as Vegenaise (58g)
- 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup beet juice (60g)
- 2 tbsp water (30g)
- 1 tsp natural red food coloring, optional if you want them redder than the ones in the photos
Preheat the oven to 350 F and line a muffin tin with 6 liners (or double the recipe for 12). In a large bowl combine first 5 ingredients (and chips, if using). Sift very well. In a separate bowl combine remaining ingredients and whisk until the mayo spread is completely smooth. Now pour wet into dry and stir until just combined. Immediately pour the batter into the pan (about 2/3 full each) and bake 14 minutes, after which time cupcakes should have risen and domed. Let sit 10 minutes to cool before removing from the mufin tin.
Any of the following mayonnaise spreads will work in this recipe: Earth Balance Mindful Mayo, low-fat or regular Vegenaise, or homemade cashew mayonnaise… Although I can’t vouch for every single mayo spread out there, the recipe should be fine as long as your mayo includes lemon juice or vinegar and a fat source such as oil or cashews. If you are using homemade mayo, I recommend omitting any onion powder and mustard that might be called for in the recipe.
View Red Velvet Cupcakes Nutrition Facts
And below, the real Sprinkles vegan red velvet cupcakes that inspired today’s recipe:
Questions of the Day:
How did you celebrate your most recent birthday? Or how are you planning to celebrate your next one? Anyone else like to drag out their birthdays to last all week?
Link of the Day: Crustless Pumpkin Pie
Where do you get your beet juice? Does it come in a bottle ready to use?
Yes, I found it at Whole Foods.
can i use real beets in the blender instead of buying juice?
My birthday is next week (yaaaaay) and I try to drag it out to “birthday month” if possible. Spread out dinners, etc. so it always feels like I’m celebrating. 😉
In my family it’s referred to as ‘Birthnukkah’. Eight days of fun!
Yessss I’m so excited to make these! I’m interested in making homemade cashew mayo…do you have a recipe for that?? And my sister is the one that spreads out her birthday…it’s definitely turned into a birthday month! August also the month a lot of my relatives were born in so she can kind of get away with it 😉
I don’t, personally… but if you google it, a lot of the recipes are probably pretty similar to one another and will work! 🙂
My birthday is coming up in October. My husband and I will be vacationing in the desert southwest. On my birthday we plan on backpacking down into the Grand Canyon and spending the night in our little tent almost a mile lower in elevation than where we started. Most people would not consider that a very good birthday present but it’s so perfect for me.
I am jealous of your birthday plans, having just read them Kelly! I thought we were the last tent campers alive. Did you have a a fantastic time?? DUH! of course you did. 🙂
I am also prone to celebrating a “birthday week,” or at least “birthday weekend.” Much more fun!
My sister is obsesed with red velvet, so I can’t wait to have her try these! My birthday bumps heads with Thanksgiving, so I’m lucky to even get one day some years.
I feel your pain, mine does too and as I kid I almost never got a party on my birthday because all my friends were visiting out of town relatives.
I love that you used beets for red colouring!
What perfect timing! My birthday is on Sunday and I was trying to decide what sort of cake/cupcake I would make. I think I may have found a winner 😉
Mine, too! =D Happy early birthday!
Whatever I end up doing for my birthday, I hope it starts with breakfast in bed! And I wouldn’t mind having these cupcakes for breakfast, yum.
My hubby and my birthdays are two days apart, this week so yes at our age 60 and 65 we definitely drag it out from birthday week to birthday month. It’s so much fun to be bad…