Cranberry & orange cupcakes recipe | ft Co-op

Vegan, quick & easy

Merry Christmas Eve!🎅🎄

What better way to celebrate Christmas than with these adorable reindeer and cranberry & orange cupcakes?!

These cupcakes are absolutely divine! The most chocolaty, moist and light cakes. I decorated half chocolate reindeers and the other half cranberry and orange. I need to stop drooling writing this! Plus it’s all 100% vegan, yay!

This recipe is in collab with The Co-op.

The Co-op have just brought out a range of free-from products which are amazing!!! Featured in the range, are the delicious Cranberry & Orange Tiffin bites. These bites are vegan and scrumptious!!! Me & my sister nibbled on a whole tray in a day, that’s how good they are- haha!

Make sure to leave a cupcake out for Santa tonight!

Preparation- 10 minutes

Baking time- 18-20 minutes

Makes- Around 10

Level- Easy

…

Ingredients for the cakes

-240ml of almond milk

-1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar

-210g of self-raising flour (You can use gluten-free)

-100g of golden caster sugar

-1 teaspoon of cocoa powder

-1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

-1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

-60g of coconut oil (Melted)

Ingredients for the buttercream

-130g of butter

-400g of icing sugar

-1 teaspoon of orange extract

-1/4 teaspoon of cranberry juice

-2 teaspoons of almond milk (Optional)

-2 tablespoons of cocoa powder

Toppings

-Co-Op cranberry & orange free-from tiffin

…

To make the cupcakes

Step 1- Preheat your oven to 180 degrees c and line a cupcake tin with cupcake cases.

Step 2- In a small bowl, combine the almond milk with the apple cider vinegar and whisk until fully combined.

Set aside for 10 minutes to curdle. This creates a vegan ‘buttermilk’.

Step 3- In a large mixing bowl, sift the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.

Mix well to combine.

Step 4- Add the melted coconut oil to the ‘buttermilk’ and whisk to combine.

Step 5- Add the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until a smooth batter.

Step 6- Fill the cases 3/4 full with the batter.

Make sure to tap the tins on the worktop to remove any air bubbles.

Step 7- Pop the cakes into the preheated oven and bake for 18-20 minutes.

You will know they are done when you put a knife or skewer in and it comes out clean and they are springy to the touch.

Step 8- Place the cupcakes on a cooling rack and allow to cool fully before frosting.

To make the frosting

Step 1- Cream the butter in a bowl, on a high speed until creamy. I use my stand mixer with the balloon whisk attachment.

Step 2- When your butter/margarine is creamy & light in colour, add in the icing sugar.

Whizz together until fluffy & fully combined.

Add a splash of milk if the buttercream is too thick.

Step 3- Separate the buttercream in half into 2 separate bowls and add in some cocoa to one bowl to make a chocolate buttercream and orange extract & cranberry juice to the other.

Step 4- Use a star tip nozzle in your piping bag and pipe a swirl of the white buttercream to half of the cupcakes.

I decorated these cakes with a sprinkling of clementine dust, a swirl of cranberry jam and tiffin bite.

Step 5- I spread the chocolate buttercream to the other cupcakes, added a single cranberry for the nose, melted dark chocolate for the face features and painted pretzels in edible gold glitter for the antlers.