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
For my last birthday (my 12th birthday), my parents only took me to dinner to my favorite restaurant to eat tacos. And then, 2 days later, I had my birthday celebration. This time with cake, family, and friends! And cake. (Did I mention there was cake?). LOL. But… that was 11 months ago. 😀 My next birthday is in less than a month! And I have a feeling it’ll involve a healthy cake recipe… 😉 P.S. I love your blog, Katie. 🙂
Ooops. I posted my comment twice. Sorry. 😛
I love Red Velvet but since going gluten free I haven’t had any. I’m excited to try these!
I’m going to NYC next week and I’m super excited to try all of your suggestions from your last trip there!
You’re picture looks beautiful, by the way!
Thanks 🙂
My 15th birthday was on Thursday!!!! 🙂
Unfortunately, I couldn’t do much to celebrate because I had school and homework. 🙁
I wish that you didn’t have to go to school and/ or work on your Birthday because IT IS A HOLIDAY and you should have holidays off! However, I did get a pedicure on my birthday. And I ate chocolate cake (which was vegan). LOTS of chocolate cake 🙂 .
When is/ was your Birthday?
It was the 6th.
So we are almost birthday twins… just over a decade apart :).
what can you use instead of xanthan gum? it bothers my stomach.
Guar gum typically works great. 🙂
Happy Birthday to you! Mine was yesterday and I love making mine into a week-long celebration as well. Red velvet is my favorite, can’t wait to try these!
I LOVE Sprinkles and I love their red velvet cupcakes. 🙂 These look great! It happens to be tradition for our family to celebrate birthdays for a week! Enjoy it!! 😉 Happy birthday!!
I do the 8 Days of Veronica. (Think Hanukkah) I get presents the 8 days preceding my birthday, and then the 9th day is my birthday, which is to be celebrated with jubilation. Can you tell I’m an only child 😉
In my family, we have birthday months! I have a little one (she’ll be two next month) and so a family member took her on the night of my most recent birthday, and DH treated me to dinner and a movie.
Anyway, keep on celebrating, m’dear, you’ve helped and inspired SO many people you deserve the month…heck, take two!
Aw thanks 🙂
Oh these sound fun! I love the idea of adding beet juice! I’m not a fan of mayo or mayo substitute, I wonder if banana or applesauce would work?
You need something with fat. You could always experiment with some banana and some oil… if you try it, let me know how it goes!
I’m also working on a yogurt variation, which has part yogurt and part oil.
This looks so very good! I cannot wait to give it a-whirl. Thanks for including a GF option on it as well!