Sunday, February 12, 2012

Tea Cup Cakes & Coconut Frosting

leaves and flours vegan coconut frosting tea cup cakes

While I am a fairly proactive person in terms of reducing waste, reusing what is possible, and recycling, I have had trouble with silicone cupcake liners. I have tried twice before, but they always seemed to rip the cake or bake oddly. Unless you are having friends over, reusable liners also make serving the cupcakes to people a bit more difficult. These are the only silicone mold that I have considered buying in years. I saw them on a clearance shelf, and thought about how impractical it was to buy them. I went home and looked more up on the internet, and decided to go back and buy them anyways.
These are from Birkmann, a European company, and sold under the name of CakeCups. There's also an American version by Fred & Friends that were a little cheaper, if you wanted to order some online. These would be adorable for a tea party or little girl's birthday. I would also love to make a tea or coffee flavored cake to really step up the game.
I recently bought a container of Earth Balance's coconut spread. When I used it in the confetti cookies, I knew it would make a wonderful coconut frosting. The frosting was light & airy, similar to a whipped cream frosting. It was so light in fact that as I tried to top the cupcakes with chocolate covered cherries, a few of them sunk right through the frosting! Keep in mind that things which contain coconut oil turn to liquids when they are warm, so you really have to wait until these cupcakes are cool to frost them.

leaves and flours vegan coconut frosting tea cup cakes

Coconut Frosting
(enough to lightly frost twelve cupcakes)

1/2 cup Earth Balance coconut spread
~2 cups powdered sugar
2-3 tablespoons almond milk

Warm coconut spread to room temperature. Beat until smooth. Add powdered sugar and milk, until desired consistency. Beat several minutes on high speed until very fluffy. Spread or pipe onto cupcakes. Frosting will thicken as it sits.

leaves and flours vegan coconut frosting tea cup cakes


I ate one of these with a cup of hot blueberry hibiscus tea. It's such a beautiful shade of red. And then pink and white cupcakes?! Maybe I am getting Valentine's fever after all.

Do you like silicone molds? I bought another pack last night that I thought might work too. I'm not sure if I could ever stop using cupcake liners. They are so beautiful! At least I reduce my paper waste by using kitchen towels instead of napkins?

6 comments:

  1. i have never used silicone molds but at my old house i just composted cupcake liners so i never felt too bad about them. that frosting looks dreamy!

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  2. How cute, those molds are awesome! I've never seen anything like that before. It's such a creative solution to an everyday sort of problem, and better yet, produces less waste than paper.

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  3. i have never used the silicone molds.. though i hardly bake many cupcakes.. but when i do, we end up composting them. living in seattle has those perks of having easy access to solutions. for other things i reuse my parchment till it rips.. thats almost like 8-10 times:)

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  4. How well did the icing last at room temperature? I'm thinking of using it for icing a wedding cake and I want to make sure that it won't be melting off the cake. Thanks so much!

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    1. The icing was fine at room temperature. I only made it the once, but from what I remember it got very crusty like a buttercream. I would definitely suggest making a few test batches since I haven't replicated this again. Good luck!

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  5. I just tried the frosting, while delicious mine ended up more like a glaze? Now that I'm re reading the recipe I believe I mistook "warming to room temp" as I melted the spread. :-) I just popped it in the fridge and will whip it again once it cools.

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