A Perfect Vanilla Cupcake Recipe – gluten free and dairy free (sayyyyyyy whaaattt?!) – and so good looking and tasty! Especially when baked inside a hollow egg and nestled in a nest next to a mini turkey!
How cute would these egg filled cupcakes be at a Thanksgiving or Easter dessert table? Rich vanilla flavors mixed with coconut oil and apple sauce (used instead of butter) make these cupcakes so powerful in flavor, healthy and moist that one would never suspect they are secretly good for you. Really, we have eaten them for breakfast the past few mornings since I know what ingredients they contain and actually have less sugar than most conventional cereal bars.
We decided to be creative and bake our cupcakes in egg shells. The boys had so much fun poking holes in the tops and watching me eagerly shake out the eggs (saved for another night’s quiche dinner). Hollowing out the eggs is slightly challenging and takes a bit of time, but it makes for a fun way to bake and display your cupcakes. And kids have so much fun peeling away the egg shells to “work” for their treat!
If you follow me on Instagram (or are a personal Facebook friend), you probably saw me post a few of these picture and how they came about. The boys have been sick this past week and we have been locked away inside. No joke, when stuck inside we bake! Poor spoiled kiddos get to stay home from school and eat cupcakes. Shame on me. So we had so much fun making, creating and baking these. Then of course needed to have a photo shoot to share with you. Chase was eager to find accessories to “play with our food” – oh, I mean create a theme. We searched the playroom for a nest, chickens and added extra eggs!
How To Hollow Out And Prepare Egg For Baking:
- Use a push pin to pierce the wider bottom end of the egg. Poke a few times to hollow out about ¼ inch hole. Use a wooden skewer to to stir and break up the yolks inside the shells. Using a strainer (to make sure no shells spill out) and over a bowl, give the egg a good shake over the strainer over the bowl to get all the egg out of the shells. Set aside.
- Rinse out each egg shell. Set in a large pot of salt water for 1 hour.
- Rinse the eggs out thoroughly and shake out any extra water. Flip upside down on a towel and towel dry outside shell.
- Drizzle coconut oil inside and outside of shell. Cover the opening hole with finger and shake around to coat interior with the oil. Shake the extra oil out by rolling the egg in the air over a towel in a circular motion with the hole on the bottom.
- Crumble 3 cupcake liners around the narrow end (closed end) of each eggshell and set the shells hole side up in the cups of a cupcake pan.
- Pour batter into a pastry bag or Ziplock bag. If using a Ziplock bag, cut ⅛ of one corner. Fill each egg with about 3 Tablespoons or ¾ full of batter.
For any extra batter, line a muffin pan and spray with cooking spray. Fill each muffin cup about ½ full before baking.
We eat dairy very sparingly in our house. I can tell a difference in energy and a “clean feeling” in doing so. Baked goods are mostly dairy free by using coconut milk, cashew milk or almond milk instead of milk products. We used vanilla coconut milk for the perfect vanilla cupcake recipe. The healthy fats in coconut milk add more moisture to gluten free flours. Dare to try a butterless recipe? This one works! Substitute ½ cup of butter for ¼ cup coconut oil and ¼ cup apple sauce. Now we are not worried about eating cupcakes every now and again. And neither should you!
