Autumnal Apple Cupcakes

With the change in seasons, there are hundreds of fallen apples on the ground around Bristol. Just outside our office in fact, we have a small public open space that is planted with cherry and apple trees. In the spring the trees were laden with blossom. The birds were first to the cherries, but luckily they have not been so interested in the apples. Inspired by the abundance of fruit, we’d like to share with you our recipe for 12 cupcakes.


Ingredients

½ tsp apple cider vinegar
150ml soya milk
100ml maple syrup
75ml vegetable oil
200g plain flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¾ tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
¼ tsp salt
200g grated apple


Topping (for extra tree ingredient points)

chopped mixed nuts (almonds and walnuts)
50g chocolate chips
3tbsp soya cream


Directions

1. Preheat oven to 175 deg C. Line muffin tray with paper cases.
2. Mix the soya milk and apple cider vinegar in a large bowl; allow to sit for a few minutes to separate.
3. Beat in the maple syrup and oil.
4. Sift in the flour, baking power, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Mix until smooth and then stir in the apple
5. Fill the cases about two-thirds full.
6. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, remove from oven and place cakes on wire rack to cool.

For the ganache topping

1. Gently heat the soya cream to near boiling.
2. Remove from the heat and stir in the chocolate chips.
3. Leave for 10 minutes to cool then decorate the cooled cupcakes.
4. Sprinkle with chopped nuts (optional).

Tree ingredients: apple, maple, cinnamon, chocolate, almonds and walnuts


We’d love to try your favourite tree cake recipe, please email it to info@treeaid.org.uk


Please do remember to check with landowners before foraging for fruit and nuts!

Easy Vegan Banana Bread

This is great one for when you find those bananas at the bottom of your fruit bowl going all black and squishy and it's personally one of my favorite types of cake. Not only is it moist and tasty but it is also really easy to make vegan without compromising the taste.

Now this is something I was unsure of before writing this, someone told me Bananas didn't grow on trees! However I always presumed they did. In fact the banana is the fruit of a herbaceous flowering plant. They are often mistaken for trees, as I have always done, but the stem (what I always mistook for its trunk!) actually dies every year after fruiting.

So really I shouldn't be writing about Banana's as they are not actually a tree ingredient, however I think it is worth doing in order to share this information and they just make really great cakes too!

The photograph shows Luc Doho with his banana tree on a TREE AID project in Mali.

This recipe was inspired and slightly modified from its original form from a website called recipes for vegans.

This recipe has two tree ingredients; apple and cinnamon (and of course the banana - which I'm not counting).

Ingredients

400g self raising flour
100g dairy free margarine
200g sultanas
2 large very ripe bananas, mashed
2 tspn Cinnamon
250ml soya milk
2 tspn cider vinegar

Directions

• Preheat the oven to gas mark 7.
  
• Combine the flour, cinnamon and margarine in a bowl and mix together with your fingers until it has a breadcrumb like consistency.
  
• Wash the sultanas in hot water to rehydrate them. Drain and allow to cool and then add to the mix.
  
• Add banana and stir.
  
• Mix the Apple Cider vinegar in with the soya milk before hand and then slowly add the soya milk 100ml at a time until you have a fairly runny mixture that is still sticking together.
  
• Put into a bread tin that has been greased and put in the hot oven for 20 minutes. To see if it is cooked all the way through, poke with a knife or skewer, if it comes out clean its done.
  
• Once cool slice up and spread with margarine.

Emma’s Tip: The apple cider vinegar and soya milk mixture works as a great substitute for eggs, and also try adding a little sugar to this recipe if you have a sweeter tooth!

Vegan Coconut Cupcakes and Climate Change

These coconut cupcakes were made by one of our TREE AID colleagues, the recipe was inspired by the cookbook "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World?" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero which you can buy from our bookshop. It makes me happy to put up a vegan recipe as most people think once you cut down on diary and animal products you are restricted to only eating lentils and salad. However, there are loads of ways of making amazing cakes suitable for the vegan diet!

Veganism or simply reducing the amount of diary is a great way of cutting down your carbon footprint. In fact, a vegetarian who eats lots of diary can have a bigger carbon footprint than a meat-eater. We shouldn't be too harsh on restricting our lifestyles, but being aware of how our lifestyles contribute to climate change is really important. This is even more poignant when we realise that the people who are most affected by climate change are those which have contributed the least.

So try this vegan cupcake recipe and see if cakes can taste just as good dairy free! The recipe below is slightly modified from the cookbook to how our colleague, Lynne, at TREE AID made them. There are 4 tree ingredients, coconut, papaya, cocoa, and almond.






Ingredients

230g all purpose flour
75g cocoa powder
1 ½ tspn baking powder
¼ tspn salt
4tbsp coconut oil/ vegetable oil works just as well
240ml coconut milk
175g granulated sugar
1 tspn vanilla extract
2 tspn coconut extract/almond extract
115g unsweetened shredded coconut

Recipe

• preheat oven to gas mark 4 or 180 degree
  
  
• in a medium bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt.
  
  
• Melt the coconut oil in a small saucepan over a very low heat. Once melted, turn the heat off but leave it in the pan on the stove so that it stays warm and does not solidify.
  
  
• In a separate medium bowl mix together coconut milk, sugar, vanilla, and coconut extract. Stir in the melted coconut oil. Add the flour mixture in batches, beating well after each addition. Mix until smooth, then fold in the shredded coconut.
  
  
• Fill cupcake liners two-thirds full. Bake for 24-26 mins. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.
  
  
  For Topping:
  
  Lynne simply melted vegan chocolate over the top mixed with a small amount of water and topped them with chunks of dried papaya. Delicious!
  
  Lynne's Tip: Use extra coconut milk for a more intense flavour.