Chai Latte Cupcakes with Coconut Icing

Inspired by GBBO? Well, here’s a chance to reward yourself with this week’s Star Baker title. Our blogger of the month Olivia Williamson (@the_cashewtree) has shared with us her fiendishly good-looking Chai Latte Cupcakes with Coconut icicng; sweet, fluffy, moreish nibbles that’ll see you through the rest of the week.

The icing can be adapted to whatever ingredients you have or prefer to use. Keep it vegan or if you like a traditional buttercream (who doesn’t), then you can adapt the recipe as needed. Go on. Give it a go and make Mary B proud.

Ingredients (Serves 6-8)

• ½ tbsp. apple cider vinegar
• 150ml Rebel Kitchen Chai Mylk
• 100g Demerara sugar
• 130g Self-raising flour
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• ½ tsp Baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 35g Coconut oil (melted)
• 1 Tsp vanilla extract

For the icing:

• 50g Coconut cream (can be bought in a tin or you can refrigerate good quality full fat coconut milk overnight so that it separates and then scoop out the solid part)
• 70g Greek yoghurt/ coconut yoghurt
• 40g Cream cheese/ vegan alternative or more coconut yoghurt
• 2 Tbsp date syrup
• 3 Tbsp icing sugar or alternative
• Pinch of cinnamon
• (Alternatively, you could ice these with a simple buttercream of roughly one part butter to two parts icing sugar. Flavour with a drop of vanilla essence and a pinch of cinnamon).

Method

1. Line a muffin pan with liners and pre-heat your oven to 175oC (fan oven).

2. In a large bowl, mix the vinegar with the milk and let sit for at least 5 minutes.

3. In a high-speed blender, blend the sugar so that it becomes a powder.

4. Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl, then sift the sugar in too. Add the baking powder, soda and salt and whisk all of the dry ingredients lightly with a fork to combine.

5. Add the melted coconut oil and vanilla to the milk mixture and whisk well.

6. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients then fold the mixture until everything is combined and no lumps are left.

7. Divide the batter between your cupcake cases and put in the oven for 15-17 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let the cakes cool completely before icing.

8. To make the icing, whisk the coconut cream with an electric whisk for a few minutes, before adding the rest of the ingredients and whisking again. Store the icing in the fridge until ready to use.

Enjoy!