Embracing Him

Food allergies abound at our house. We’re dealing with nut, egg, and dairy allergies. Most of the time, I am pretty skilled at planning meals without these allergens, but I will admit I have run into snags with dessert recipes. Though I can find some desserts that are free of all three allergens, many of them are “processed in facilities or on equipment that may be used to process nuts”. This just isn’t a chance I”m willing to take.

Our food allergies have fueled my search for homemade dessert recipes free of nuts, egg, and dairy. Since Sweet Pea’s 4th birthday is right around the corner, I’ve been searching for and testing safe cupcake recipes all of us can enjoy at her birthday party.

Here’s the recipe I tried today and much to my surprise the cupcakes were yummy AND gave me a good chocolate fix! The recipe is free of eggs, milk, and butter and yields approximately 24 moist, delicious, chocolaty cupcakes.

Keep these things in mind as you prepare the recipe…

• Use a high quality cocoa powder such as Ghiradelli to ensure the greatest chocolate taste.

• Want more chocolate? Add about 1 cup of allergen free chocolate chips to the batter or stir in a melted allergen free chocolate bar.

• Do not overbake the cupcakes or they will become dry and crumbly.

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes

3 cups flour
2 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup cocoa powder (use high quality i.e. Ghiradelli for best flavor)
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups water
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons white vinegar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients until moist and well blended. (The batter may seem thin, but it’s fine.) Pour into cupcake cups and bake for 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees. Allow cupcakes to cool and frost.

Photo: Courtesy of SiFu Renka (Flickr)

Once you taste these brownies, you’ll want to abandon boxed brownie mix. These brownies are chocolaty, moist, easy to prepare, and absolutely delicious. If you’re a true chocolate lover like me, you won’t be disappointed. It’s another fabulous recipe from allrecipes.com.

Chocolate Brownies

½ cup white sugar
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons water
1 ½ cups semisweet chocolate chips
2 eggs
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease an 8×8 inch square pan.

In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, butter and water. Cook over medium heat until boiling. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate chips until melted and smooth. Mix in the eggs and vanilla.

Combine the flour, baking soda and salt; stir into the chocolate mixture. Spread evenly into the prepared pan.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until brownies set up. Do not overbake! Cool in pan and cut into squares.

My Notes: I suggest that you temper the eggs before adding them to the warm chocolate mixture or allow the chocolate mixture to cool a bit so you don’t end up with scrambled eggs in the batter.

I used a 12 ounce bag of chocolate chips, melting the 1 ½ cups as the recipe calls for and adding the extra ½ cup to the cooled batter so I could have chocolate chunks in the brownies. (If you do add the extra chocolate chips, toss them in a teaspoon of flour to coat them so they won’t sink to the bottom of the pan.)