Vegan Blueberry and Coconut Cupcake

Here is the very first vegan recipe on the blog: vegan blueberry and coconut cupcakes. I made this recipe this summer for a brand (I’ll let you discover my Instagram post if you’re curious). I used flaxseeds, coconut blossom sugar and blueberry powder.

It was a big challenge for me since I’m not a devotee of vegan recipes, it’s not my world. Here I chose to use flaxseeds to replace the egg, a real first for me (and yes, eggs are usually just a must-have, like sugar and flour :P). Well, it works very well. I got very soft cupcakes which I topped with a chantilly made from coconut cream and blueberry powder.

The vegan ingredients

In this blueberry and coconut cupcake recipe, there are several “vegan” ingredients. Here, flaxseeds replace the eggs. Note that it’s important for the flaxseeds to be ground (you can do it yourself with a grinder if you have whole flaxseeds). They are mucilaginous, meaning that on contact with water, they form a sort of gel fairly close to the texture of an egg white.

I used almond milk, but you can use the plant-based milk of your choice, according to your personal taste.

Finally, in the recipe I’ve indicated to use plant-based margarine to stay on the vegan theme, but I personally used melted butter.

What if I don’t have these specific ingredients?

You can obviously replace the “vegan” ingredients or the specific ingredients with your usual ones: whole or semi-skimmed milk instead of plant-based milk, white sugar or brown sugar instead of coconut blossom sugar, butter instead of plant-based margarine and eggs instead of flaxseeds. Generally, one egg is equivalent to one tablespoon of ground flaxseeds (so you’d need to put 2 eggs in this recipe).

For the chantilly, you can replace the coconut cream with full-fat liquid cream and the agave syrup with icing sugar.

Blueberry powder is a rather fun ingredient to use (which can also serve as a natural colouring). If you don’t have any, it’s not a big deal. There are quite a lot of fresh blueberries in the cupcake batter that bring the blueberry flavour. As for the chantilly, it can be coconut, vanilla, it doesn’t matter.

As for coconut sugar, it’s a good alternative to white sugar. It comes from the sap of the coconut palm and, unlike refined white sugar for example, it provides minerals such as iron, zinc and potassium. Also note that coconut sugar doesn’t taste of coconut (I’m pointing it out anyway for those who aren’t familiar with it). Its flavour is quite pronounced with caramelised, slightly vanilla notes. Finally, it has a sweetening power similar to raw cane sugar.

How do I make a chantilly cream without liquid cream?

It’s entirely possible to make a chantilly cream without liquid cream (and therefore vegan) by using coconut cream (be careful, it won’t work with coconut milk). Admittedly, the result isn’t identical to a traditional chantilly, but honestly, it works! Just put the coconut cream in the fridge the day before for the next day (so it’s nice and cold). Also remember to put the stand mixer bowl and the whisk in the fridge about twenty minutes before starting.

Once the coconut cream is poured into the mixer bowl, simply whip it gradually into chantilly, increasing the speed progressively, just like a traditional chantilly. It can take several minutes. When it’s almost whipped, add the agave syrup. Don’t hesitate to put the chantilly in the fridge before piping it onto the cupcake so that it holds better.