Vegan / Gluten Free Banana Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

When we first received the letter from our allergist stating our little lady couldn't eat eggs, dairy, wheat, corn, peas or nuts I surprisingly wasn't worried about our normal meals.  The big thing I wondered about were desserts.  Surprising right?!  How would she ever get to eat a cookie or cake again?  What would we do about birthday celebrations at preschool? What about Christmas cookies? 

I enjoy baking, but this new twist has been quite the challenge.  All new types of flours, egg substitutes and vegan butters were a little mind blowing.  I've tried all sorts of recipes and they are just not the same as the original.  Until now.  These cupcakes are amazing!  So amazing in fact that my daughter asked for another the minute after she ate the first one and my husband, who is notoriously picky about his desserts, (he's a bit of a dessert connoisseur) approved and ate more than half of them!

This recipe is just to fantastic not to share!  I do believe you could make these using 'regular' ingredients and they would be just as amazing!

I adapted a recipe I found online and did some quick Internet research to figure out a good substitute for eggs.  Turns out that in different types of recipes you need to use different substitutes for eggs.  Who knew!  For cupcakes, I used 1/4 cup vegetable oil per egg.

To start these bad boys mix together your dry ingredients.

Then make a well in the middle of your dry ingredients and add in your butter, mashed bananas, vegetable oil and vanilla.  Stir the wet ingredients together first and then start to stir in the dry ones.  Stir until everything is mixed up.  Then add in your chocolate chips!

Scoop the batter into a paper lined muffin tin.  This made 12 cupcakes for me.  Then mix up the frosting.  It's your basic powdered sugar / butter / milk recipe.  Bake the cupcake for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees.  When finished and cool and frost them!  Having a little help never hurt anything ; )

We added sprinkles to make them fancy and then devoured 'um.

Hope you enjoy them too!

Vegan / Gluten Free Banana Chocolate Chip Cupcakes
adapted from:  www.mywisemom.com

Cupcake Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
*1 1/2 cups gluten free flour.  I used Bobs Red Mill gluten free flour
*1 1/8 tsp xanthan gum (Only use this if you are using the Bob's Red Mill flour.  The side of the flour package tells you how much to add based on what type of food you are making.  For cupcakes it is 3/4 tsp per cup of flour.  So for this recipe I added 1 and 1/8 tsp.  You would NOT add this if using wheat flour.)
*1 tsp baking powder
*1/2 tsp baking soda
*1/4 tsp salt

Wet Ingredients
*1/2 tsp vanilla
*1/2 cup vegan butter.  I used Earth Balance baking sticks.  Any type of butter would work.
*1 1/2 cups mashed up bananas.  (I used 3 bananas)
*1/2 cup vegetable oil (This is a substitute for eggs.  If you can eat eggs, use 2 of them!)

*3/4 cup vegan chocolate chips (regular would work too)

Frosting Ingredients
*1 tsp vanilla
*2 tbsp soy milk (use whatever milk is allergy friendly in your house)
*1/2 cup vegan butter.  I used Earth Balance again - but use whatever is friendly to you!
*3 1/2 cups powdered sugar


1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2.  Line your muffin tin with paper liners.
3.  Mix together dry ingredients
4.  Make a small well in the center of your dry ingredients.  Add the wet ingredients.  Stir the wet ingredients together first, then begin to combine with the dry ingredients.  Stir until mixed.
5.  Stir in chocolate chips
6.  Scoop batter into cupcake papers.
7.  Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean.
8.  While you are baking the cupcakes, mix up your frosting.  Beat all of the ingredients together in a mixer until frosting forms.  Add more milk or powdered sugar depending on how runny or thick you like your frosting.
9.  Allow cupcakes to cool on a wire rack, then frost, add sprinkles and enjoy!

Steak Stir Fry!

Sorry I've been an absent blogger lately.  Seems like life has gotten busy busy busy! We've been doing things like this:

 Trying on a new hat!

Heading to our first day of dance class!

 Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping

Feeding goats at the zoo

Cheering on the Hawkeyes

 Having our first day of preschool!

My babies and I

And indulging in some comfort food after our baby went off to preschool!


We did try a new stir fry meal though!

This quick, fast and delicious meal took no time to make at all!  Especially since we used steak left over from the night before.  I forgot to take pictures while making it, so I'll summarize quickly!

1.  Make rice.  I used minute brown rice, but whatever you have on hand would be great.  I used 2 cups of rice.

2.  Saute vegetables in a little bit of olive oil.  I used whatever I had in the fridge and pantry.  In this version I chopped up some carrots and celery, opened a can of mushrooms and water chestnuts and threw in some frozen onion and green pepper.

3.  When the vegetables are soft, add in some seasoning.  We used Worcestershire sauce.  The soy sauce I had purchased contained wheat (big bummer!) so we didn't use that. 

4.  Next assemble!  I used left over steak and heated it in the microwave.  Then added the rice, veggies and meat to the bowl, topped with some sesame seeds and viola ... dinner!

Like I said - quick, easy and good!  Put whatever you like in there to make it with your own flavor!

Enjoy!

Steak Stir Fry
2 cups cooked rice (follow directions on package.  I used minute brown rice)
~5 mini carrots chopped
1 small can mushrooms
2 celery ribs chopped
1/2 green pepper chopped
1/2 small onion chopped
1 small can water chestnuts
1-2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
Steak (or whatever meat you have on hand!)
Handful of sesame seeds

1.  Make rice
2.  Sautee vegetables in a little bit of olive oil
3.  Cook steak, or reheat if using left overs like I did!
4.  Add Worcestershire sauce to vegetables. 
5.  Assemble!  Rice, veggies, meat.
6.  Top with sesame seeds