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
I made these for my kiddos and they were so moist and yummy. I made a couple of substitutions and it didn’t seem to affect the outcome. I didn’t have beet juice so I substituted unsweetened almond milk and I substituted 1/2 of the xylitol with stevia in the raw.
Thank you for another fabulous recipe!
Hi Katie!
I made this cake for my sisters birthday. It was amazing! I ended up making it twice… for the same person:) I became sugar-free a year ago and I was dying for some treats (Literally dying!) Thank you so much!
I was just wondering if the serving size 60g, was after it was baked or before. My cupcakes came out to around 20-24g a piece, so I wasn’t sure.
I love red velvet cupcakes! I made a red velvet cake for my sister’s wedding (picture:https://twitter.com/MateaMilojkovic/status/498131337560457217) and it was quickly gone! I like the substitution of beat juice for red food coloring; I should try it next time I’m baking red velvet goodies!
Would it work if I use this as a recipe for a cake?
Would the sweetener measurement be different if I am using stevia? Could the batch be used for a cake recipe too? Hope to hear from anyone! Cheers!
And how many drops of sweetener stevia would this recipe be equivalent to?
these tasted amazing but how do I prevent my cupcakes from sinking? They all sank 🙁
They should not sink. Sounds like you didn’t put them in the oven right after you activated the baking soda. But it’s impossible to try and guess when one was not in the kitchen with you. Can you read through Katie’s Recipe FAQ page (at the top of her blog) and then report back with more details after reading the troubleshoot section of that post?
Katie, you can also make these redder (or really pinker) by changing the pH of the batter, most notably by adding vinegar. 🙂
Hi Katie! I have been using recipes from your website for a while now and everything has ALWAYS turned out great. This past weekend I made the gingerbread cake and chai banana bread and my family LOVED both of them. Just want to say thank you for providing such amazing, creative recipes for those health-conscious eaters and bakers like me!
Thank YOU for trying the recipes 🙂
Long time follower, first time commenter. love your creativity. The recipes don’t always work for me but the process of learning is fun..I made the red velvet cupcakes tonight with these small changes and it came out amazing- thanks for the inspiration:
Doubled the recipe, and used a cup of pureed mejoola dates instead of sugar; used half cocount flour, half ww flour. Cooked a beet and used the diluted ‘beet water’ Didn’t need the frosting- moist and wonderful!
OMG! Thank you so much for this recipe. My children cannot have sugar. They have about 10 times the “normal” reaction to sugar with just one bite, so with my daughter’s birthday today I went looking for healthier cake recipes. (I must be honest, I did modify it a bit, but based on your other recipes I thought you might be interested in that too) Instead of sugar, I used dates. Whole, pitted dates. Just filled the half-cup measure up, and then mixed the wet ingredients (including the dates) in the blender, pureed until smooth. These are fantastic! Stand-alone even, they don’t need the frosting at all. Gorgeously rich and soft. Thanks to you, my children can have cake on their birthdays!
Oh my gosh. THANK YOU for making a recipe with only 10 ingredients that are accessible to everyone anywhere! Red velvet cupcakes are fussy enough to make and making them vegan and Gluten free looked like it was gong to be a nightmare until I came across your recipe. I also find it hard to find a lot of vegan alternative products in oz (different brand names? Also not a strict vegan…). LOVE your work! And thanks again!
Hi! so far I have made several of your desserts for my (not so easy to fool with healthy dessert husband) and picky 4 year old. They have LOVED ALL desserts that I have made so thank you! But when I have tried printing some of your recipes like healthy cream cheese frosting, red velvet cupcakes, ect. Everything from the pictures to the hundreds of comments print out (I have never waited for all to print I just cancelled). I noticed many of your recipes are not in the box where you can just print the recipe. Are you aware of that? If so how can I just print the recipes out? Thanks Again!
This should answer your question, but for the older recipes you can highlight the recipe and press “control c” then open a word document and paste: https://lett-trim.today/2014/10/12/chocolate-covered-katie-brand-new-blog-features/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
My fiancees favorite cake is this so I’m glad my favorite website for healthy sweets has provided me this ;-). If I can see him on our anniversary I might surprise him two fold!
How do you get 6 cupcakes from 1/2 cup flour?
We thought the same thing but the recipe works out for 6 cupcakes (plus some bowl licking leftover 😉