Recipe: Lauren Dangoor’s Raw Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

It’s been a little quiet on the recipe front, but for very good reason. Our resident healthy recipe guru, Lauren Dangoor, is away at the Living Light Culinary Institute in North California, studying gourmet raw vegan cuisine.

She couldn’t help sending this one across, with love; a mouth-watering recipe for Raw Hot Chocolate Cupcakes created during recipe development week with classmate Emily Ellers. We’ll leave the explanation to her…

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These plant-based, raw cupcakes have a little kick to them, with added spice and cinnamon. They’re dairy free, gluten free and refined sugar free, and also – as the name suggests – don’t need to be cooked! So if you wanted to, you can eat a little while making them – just be sure to  leave some for others.

Raw Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

Total Time: 45 mins
Equipment: Food processor, Blender, Mini Cupcake pan (I recommend the using the ones with a removable base)
Makes: approx 16

Ingredients

Cupcake

• 4 dates
• 1 tbsp cashew butter
• 2 cups macadamia nuts
• 2 cups pecans
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ cup maple syrup (grade b)

Filling

• ½ cup coconut cream
• ¼ cup maple syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• ½-1 tsp cacao powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ tsp ancho chilli pepper
• ¼ tsp salt
• 3 smidgens cayenne pepper

Frosting

• 1 ½ cups cashew cream (made using water and cashews blended – use less water to get a thicker consistency)
• ¼ cup coconut oil
• ¼ cup coconut butter
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 ½ ancho chilli pepper
• 1 cup maple sugar (blended in a spice grinder)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 ½ tbsp. cacao powder
• ¾ tsp salt
• 1/5 tsp cayenne pepper
• ¼ tsp organic soy lecithin (avoid if intolerant)

Method

Frosting

1. Add all the ingredients into a blender and mix till a thick consistency. If using the soy lecithin mix everything first then add the soy last to blend
2. Refrigerate until ready to ice the cupcakes

Cupcakes

1. In a food processor add the dates with 3 tbsp of water and blend to get a paste like consistency
2. Add the cashew butter and blend again
3. Add the nuts, maple syrup, vanilla, salt and process until a crumble is formed. The mix should be able to stick together when in your hand. Make sure you don’t over process to make a nut butter!
4. Place only 1-2 small tablespoon of mix in each tin. You want to achieve thickness resembling a cupcake. Be sure to reserve some mixture for step 7.
5. Using your finger or an apple corer, make a small whole in the middle of each cupcake. Don’t go all the way to the bottom to prevent the filling from dripping out from the bottom!
6. Add the filling to the hole
7. Use remaining mixture to cover the top of the hole
8. Finally, remove cupcakes carefully from cupcake pan cover each with frosting
9. Ready to serve!! Enjoy!

Follow Lauren on Instagram and be sure to tag @welltodolondon and @healthyremedy in your creations.