Swoonworthy Grainless Wonder: Chocolate Mocha Blender Cupcakes

Yup, you heard me. Blender cupcakes.  Rich, dark chocolatey cake, topped with a tower of unctuous mocha cream cheese frosting, these are everything our little grain free hearts can desire. Especially since they taste just like the cupcakes from the best baker you know. Just don't tell your friends until after they finish swooning that they're made with black beans. And all natural non-sugar sweeteners. Far better than all those gluten-free cakes made with 36 different odd foods ground into powders.

Everything gets mixed in the blender. No mixer for the cake part, just the blender and a small bowl to mix some of the dry ingredients.  You will need a mixer for the frosting, but the recipe makes a lot, and you can console yourself by eating the extra fabulous frosting while no one is watching.

All I could do to not just dive in. 

Grain Free Chocolate Mocha Blender Cupcakes
Adapted from the recipe for Healthy Chocolate Cake from Healthy Indulgences

Note: I keep seeing in other recipes that if you can detect a beany taste in the cake, it will disappear after they stand 8 to 12 hours. What I've actually found is that there is no discernible bean taste after they cool, if you choose very bland beans. For these I suggest organic black soy beans (Eden Brand), although regular black beans will work fine. The soy beans are also very low in carbohydrate compared to other beans, and makes this already low carb recipe still lower. My husband, who is a Type 2 diabetic can also indulge in one of these since the alternative natural sweeteners don't seem to impact his blood sugar. You body may react differently if you have blood sugar issues.

1 15 ounce can of black soy beans, drained and rinsed
5 large eggs
1 T pure vanilla extract
6 T melted unsalted butter, cooled slightly
1T instant espresso powder
3/4 cup granular erythritol,
1/2 tsp. pure stevia extract
6T Dutch process cocoa powder
1 tsp. aluminum-free baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda

Preheat the oven to 325ºF. Place 12 cupcake papers in the cups of a cupcake pan, and spray the inside of the cups with oil cooking spray. Set the pan aside.

In a small bowl, mix the cocoa powder, the baking powder and the baking soda, then set aside. Into the blender container, place the drained beans, the eggs, the vanilla extract,  and the melted butter. Puree, scraping down the inside of the blender jar as necessary. Next add the espresso powder, the erythritol and the stevia. puree again. Last add the cocoa mixture from the bowl and puree until it's all mixed evenly.  Pour the batter evenly among the 12 prepared cupcake cups, and bake for 25 to 30 minutes until domed, and a toothpick stuck into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Let the cupcakes cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then carefully remove them to a cooling rack to fin isn cooling to room temperature.

Chocolate Mocha Cream Cheese Frosting
Note: to keep the granular texture of the sweeteners from being noticeable, I suggest placing the erythritol, the xylitol and the stevia in a food processor and blending them together until the texture resembles powdered sugar. if you are lazy, like me, just use them as the come out of the package but be warned, there will be it bit of an undissolved sugar texture in the finished frosting. No one has minded so far here. They just scarf them down.

1 8-oz block of cream cheese, softened at room temp
3 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate, melted
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
pinch of salt
3/4 cup granular erythritol
3T granular xylitol
1/4 tsp. pure stevia extract
1 T instant espresso powder
1/4 cup hot tap water

Stir the erythritol, xylitol and the stevia into the hot water, then stir in the instant espresso. Stir to dissolve the sweeteners as much as possible. In a large bowl, with a hand mixer, whip together the cream cheese, the melted chocolate, the vanilla and the salt. When well blended, mix in the Espresso mixture, and whip on high speed for a few minutes until the frosting is light and fluffy. Pipe or spread generously on the completely cooled cupcakes. Garnish with 90% dark chocolate shavings, or dark chocolate covered coffee beans. Makes enough frosting to cover a dozen cupcakes generously, plus a bit for the cook to eat from the bowl. Ahem.

Fee, Fie, Foe, Friday: The Coffee Sweetener Dilemma

What the heck can I stir into my coffee in the morning that won't rot my teeth, raise my blood sugar, make me fat, or give me some dread disease somewhere down the road? And doesn't taste weird?

This is probably over-thinking this, but I think I am a sugar addict. My husband says I'm crazy, but I find when I eat a sugar-sweetened dessert, or a piece of candy, I have to have MORE. I can never seem to stop at one serving. Always two and sometimes three. Which is why I try to avoid sugar as much as I can, without turning into a food hermit. According to what I've read from Gary Taubes, I'm probably right about the addictiveness.

I'm guessing I'm not alone, in wanting a little something to sweeten my day, considering how many sugar substitutes I can buy in a single supermarket on a single shopping trip. Aside from plain old cane sugar, there is a plethora of natural and artificial sugar substitutes and the sheer number boggles the mind. Back when I was an online member of Weight Watchers, and frequenting their community boards, there would be outright battles over what to use in place of the demon sugar. No one ever won.

Problem is, I still like my coffee sweetened, or some sort of a decent-tasting  dessert. I've got an arsenal of various sugar substitutes from the generally considered fake artificial, like the saccharine in the pink packets, the aspartame in the blue ones, and the sucralose in the yellow ones. Those are shoved way back in a corner.

Then there are the "alternative" sugars like the sugar alcohols erythritol, xylitol, and the polydextrose (yep, have them, too) and finally the herbal extract, stevia. I'm not even going to discuss the "natural" sugars like raw cane, turbinado, coconut, honey, molasses, and date. Which I also have some of each. What you see here is just from ONE partial sweetener shelf in my pantry. Oy. 

All are good, none are perfect for everything. Sigh.

My current leanings are to evict the artificial ones from their space, and stick to the more naturally occurring products. The problem is, no single sweetener is good for all purposes. I think stevia is revolting in coffee, but fine in smoothies and baking. Xylitol is good for baking and frostings, but can give a digestive upset in quantity. Erythritol is ok in coffee, doesn't give digestive problems, but can be grainy and has a cooling effect in some dishes. No one-size-fits-all here, no matter how much I wish it.

Maybe I'll just start drinking my coffee black.

Condimentally Speaking: Natural Homemade Ketchup No Added Sugar

Delicious, Addicting, Homemade Ketchup!

The spices smell wonderful as they steep!

I’ve been trying to cut as much of the “hidden” sugar from my daily meals as much as possible. So I can eat UN-hidden sugar, like those wonderful little buttercream filled Belgian chocolate bars from Trader Joe’s. I’m trying to at least be conscious of it, and so many condiments are loaded with it. Honey mustard, salad dressing, even some commercial soups are a significant source. I’m not even talking about the evil High Fructose Corn Syrup, just plain old sugar.

The biggest offender, in my fridge, is ketchup, and while I don’t use it on many things, when I do use it, I slather it on. If I could limit myself to the serving size on the bottle, it would be all well and good. But I use a lot when I do. There IS commercial ketchup that’s no-sugar-added from the company that makes America’s favorite ketchup, but that’s sweetened with artificial sweetener. The bottled natural versions without sugar are so expensive that I’d need to take out a mortgage to get enough for a couple of meals of burgers and fries. 

This is a fairly straightforward recipe for homemade ketchup. It doesn't taste like the one you find in bottles at  most burger joints. It tastes fresh, and both sweet and spicy. If you want it closer in flavor, add more sweetener, and use something other than stevia. I have used stevia, since I have quite a bit of it, and so far have found no health issues associated with it,  but you can use other sweeteners, like sugar, honey or even Splenda® equal to 3 Tablespoons. I like to use whole spices and strain them out as the powdered products make a muddy looking ketchup. 

This ketchup is really good, and while I can't wean my husband off his old, familiar bottled stuff, I'd rather have this any day. It's really addicting.

Natural No Added Sugar  Homemade Ketchup

1T whole coriander seed

1 broken cinnamon stick

10 whole black peppercorns

3 whole cloves

2 bay leaves

1 T kosher salt

Stevia equivalent to 3 T+ of sugar

2 T dried onion flakes

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1-1/2 cups dry white wine

1 6 oz. can tomato paste

2T rice wine vinegar

1/2 tsp. hot sauce

water as needed

In a small covered sauce pan, place all the ingredients up to and including the white wine. Bring to a simmer and cook until it's reduced to about 1 cup of liquid. Cover and remove from the heat and let steep for 15 to 30 minutes.

Carefully strain the liquid into a bowl,stir in the tomato paste, then whisk in the vinegar and hot sauce. Taste for seasoning and add more stevia (sweetener,  vinegar  or salt as needed to get a good balanced product. Place the mixture back in the saucepan, and add as much water as needed to get a ketchup that will mound on your spoon. This will depend on how thick your tomato paste was, as brands vary. Bring to a quick boil, remove from the heat and let cool. Store in a covered jar in the fridge for up to two weeks. If it lasts that long.