Sugar free cupcakes and buttercream icing with Natvia

The good folks at Natvia again sent me some of their product to try out and give away to you my readers (see competition at bottom of page). Whilst you could make the sweeping statement my life at Kiwicakes revolves around sugar, many of our cake decorators are having to deal with allergies & intolerances for their family, friends or customers special diets Just this past week, I've been asked about vegan baking, gluten free baking, lactose free icings and sugar free baking for a diabetic. As well as ingredients for a lady with Crone's disease. I don't claim to be any expert on any of these things, however I endeavour to do my best to help out.

So I was intrigued to try the new Natvia icing mix - opening the pack, it looks just like icing sugar. When the icing is mixed up, it looks and behaves just like a pipeable buttercream, so for cake decorators it's very easy to use.

I made two different cupcakes. The first "Black Walnut" and the second "Bavarian Cream". Both used the two recipes below for the buttercream icing and the basic chocolate cupcake recipe below.

For the Black Walnut

Add 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts to the cake batter, along with 1/4 tsp of Lorann oil Black Walnut flavour. For the buttercream icing add 4-6 drops (to your taste) to the buttercream icing and stir until well combined. Garnish cupcakes with chopped walnuts.

For the Bavarian cream

Let me first describe Bavarian cream for those who don't know the flavour, it's a wonderful toffee-ish, caramelly super yummy flavour. I add 1/2 tsp Lorann oil Bavarian cream flavour to the cake batter recipe below and 4-6 drops of Bavarian cream flavour to the buttercream icing recipe. My cupcakes in the photo are garnished with a fondant flower, which is not sugar free, but for the most part, they are removed prior to eating by most people, as the taste is not great.

I made a chocolate buttercream using

125g butter whipped in the stand mixer until light and fluffy

To which I added the Natvia icing mix, 3 Tbsp milk 1/2 cup sifted cocoa. Whip until smooth.

To make the cupcakes, I altered my chocolate cupcake recipe swapping out the sugar for the Natvia

Ingredients

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (use baking cocoa, not drinking cocoa)

1/8 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons butter, softened

1 cup Natvia

2 eggs

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup milk

Method

1 Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Line a muffin pan with paper or foil liners. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa and salt. Set aside.

2 In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition, then stir in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk; beat well. Fill the muffin cups 3/4 full.

3 Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Cupcakes iced and baked with Natvia certainly taste different to those baked with sugar, it's a little hard to describe the flavour, there's almost a cooling quality to the icing - I think it's something you need to try for yourself.

Competition: Enter to win one of 5 boxes of Natvia icing mix delivered anywhere in NZ. You receive one entry for commenting here and one entry for commenting on our facebook post. Tell me have you ever tried sugar free baking was it a success?. 5 winners will be drawn at random Tuesday 28th April