Hello and Lemon Lime Cupcakes!

Hi there! Thanks for dropping by my blog – I’m so excited to start sharing my cooking experiences (good and bad!) with you all!

Today I am starting off with these zesty little cupcakes. With New Year’s resolutions for a healthy year still going strong, lighter alternatives to old favourites were called for. I devised these lemon lime cupcakes as my vegan take on the more traditional cupcake.

I started with a basic cupcake recipe and made a few tweaks to increase the general healthiness. The secret ingredient in these little cakes is – tofu! Although it sounds strange, tofu is an excellent egg replacer. I first came across this idea when looking for egg-alternatives for my sister-in-law, Anita, who is unfortunately allergic to eggs (she can tolerate small amounts of egg in cakes and so on but egg-free recipes are preferred). Tofu has similar binding qualities to egg and adds a nice moisture, so your cakes will still hold together and have a lovely soft texture. Tofu also is hailed as a complete protein, making it a great alternative to meat. And as it has a mild flavour, it won't drastically change the taste of your final product!

I then replaced good old butter with rice-bran oil to reduce the saturated fat content (although you could use any light-flavoured oil instead).

There is still a fair amount of sugar in the icing, so if you are looking to cut down on sugar, you could easily replace this with a light dusting of icing sugar, or leave the icing off altogether.

So, how did the cakes turn out after all the adjustments? In fact, the cakes were pleasantly tasty! They were soft and slightly crumbly, with a delicate fragrance from the citrus zest and a zingy hit from the lemon icing. My mum said that if I had not told her they were made with tofu she would not have known the difference!

I hope you will all enjoy the recipe as much as I did! And if you have any comments or suggestions please do let me know!

Vegan lemon and lime cupcakes

Adapted from The Australian Women’s Weekly – Little Pies & Cakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes

2 cups (300g) self-raising flour

A pinch of salt

2/3 cup rice-bran oil (or any other light-flavoured oil e.g. canola oil)

¾ cup (170 g) blended silken tofu

½ cup caster sugar

¼ cup soy milk

1 tsp finely grated lime rind

1 tsp finely grated lemon rind

Icing

1 ½ cups (200g) icing sugar

3 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon water

Lemon slices to decorate (optional)

Makes 12 cupcakes

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees/160 degrees fan-forced. Line a 12-hole muffin pan with paper cases
2. In a large bowl, sift together self-raising flour and salt.
3. In another bowl, whisk together oil, tofu, sugar, milk, lime and lemon rind until smooth.

4. Make a well in the flour, pour in liquid ingredients, and fold ingredients together until combined

5. Divide mixture among paper cases. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Stand cakes in pan for 5 minutes before turning onto wire racks to cool.

6. Once cakes are entirely cool, spread with icing and decorate with lemon slices.

7. To make icing: sift icing sugar into small bowl. Stir in lemon juice and water to make a spreadable paste.