I watched Jamie Oliver make these on TV last weekend and they looked super cute and tasty and easy to veganize, so I looked up the recipe HERE and whipped up a batch of my own.
Ingredients
cupcakes
200g Butternut Squash
175g light soft brown sugar
The equivalent of 2 eggs (I used EnerG but there are other alternatives)
Sea salt
150g plain flour
1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
A small handful of walnuts
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
90ml extra virgin olive oil
The frosted cream topping
zest of ½ a clementine
zest and juice of ½ a lemon
70ml Vegan Sour Cream or Unsweetened Yogourt
1 heaped tablespoon icing sugar
1 tsp Vanilla or 1 vanilla pod
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4
Cut the top and bottom off of the butternut squash and discard
Carefully halve the squash lengthwise then scrape out the seeds with a spoon and discard
Roughly chop the squash then add the pieces to a food processor and whiz until finely chopped
Add the sugar, and “eggs”
Add a pinch of salt, the flour, baking powder, walnuts, cinnamon and extra virgin olive oil.
Whiz again until just combined
You may need to stop the processor after a couple of minutes and scrape the mix down off the sides with a rubber spatula to help it mix evenly
Try not to overdo it with the mixing – you want to just combine everything and no more
Line your cupcake tin with paper cases
Use tablespoons to fill the paper cases three-quarters of the way up with cake mixture
Bake in the hot oven for 20 to 25 minutes
You can check to see if the cakes are cooked by sticking a cocktail stick (or a knife) right into one of them.
Remove it after 5 seconds and if it comes out clean they’re cooked; if it’s slightly sticky they’ll need a bit longer, so put them back in the oven for 5 more minutes, or until cooked through and golden on top
If you cook them for too long, though, they will go dry so keep an eye on them
Remove the cakes from the tins and transfer to a wire rack to cool
While your cakes are cooking, make your frosted cream topping
Finely grate the Clementine zest, put most of it in a bowl, keeping a little bit to one side
Finely grate the lemon zest into the bowl then squeeze in the juice from half of the lemon
Add the yogourt/sour cream to a bowl
Sift in the icing sugar
Add the Vanilla extract – If you are using a Vanilla pod, halve the pod lengthwise and carefully drag the blade of your knife along the inside of the pod to scrape all the vanilla seeds out
Add the seeds to the bowl and mix well
Have a taste and think about it – adjust the amount of lemon juice or icing sugar to balance the sweet and sour
Put the icing into the fridge until your cakes have cooled down completely, then spoon the topping on to the cakes
Scatter with the rest of the Clementine zest and tuck in
