Gluten Free Blueberry-Lemon Cupcakes with Coconut Oil/Buttercream Frosting

NO GMOs here!

'Holy blueberry cupcakes Batman!!!'
This one's a winner.  Winner of what, precisely, I'm not sure, but the end product is super tasty.

It all started with a Hodgson Mill® gluten free yellow cake mix.  You may have noticed my excitement about this company and their products - let me reiterate; they are a Family Owned company, dedicated to transparency of ingredients & green business practices, their products are made right here in the U.S. of A., there are NO preservatives, NO gmos, and NO 'unpronounceable ingredients' all at a very reasonable price.  Honestly, what more can you ask for?

So yes, I was in the mood for cupcakes; unconventional cupcakes.  Suddenly I remembered the enormous amount of organic blueberries I still had in the freezer...

And some lemon would be nice, with frosting of course (That goes without saying. It is not a cupcake unless it has frosting on it, and to call something a cupcake and not put frosting on it would be blasphemous).

I used some parts of the recipe on the box and came up with this:

• 1/2 cup butter (one stick), softened

• 2 large eggs

• 3/4 cup milk

• zest of one lemon

• 1/4 cup lemon juice (I squeezed the zested lemon and added about 3 or 4 more tablespoons for a total of 1/4 cup.  You may need more or less depending on the size of the lemon.)

• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

• 1 box of Hodgson Mill Gluten Free Cake Mix

• 2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries (I used frozen - there's a really great organic blueberry farm near me.  I usually buy about 20 lbs of organic blueberries at a fantastic price - about $2 a pound-  freeze them, and then use them throughout the year.  It pays to shop local.  Check out some of the links on this blog to find the local farms near you! You may be pleasantly surprised to find out whats right in your backyard.)

* A Note about blueberries (and other produce): If they are fresh it's great. Frozen is ok too.  More importantly, if you can afford to get organic berries (this includes other varieties, like strawberries), do it.  You can't peel berries, so any pesticide or other chemical that is sprayed may absorb into the fruit's skin.  There is only so much that washes off...you're eating the rest (Yuck!).  Here's a link to the EWG's shopper's guide to help you avoid pesticides in your food: ewg.org 2013 shoppers guide

Back to the recipe.

Evil Sifter

For the frosting, I used the Original Wilton Recipe with a few adjustments:

• 1/2 cup organic virgin coconut oil (much better for you than shortening)

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar (approximately 1lb.) - (I know sifting is not fun.  I share your resentment, especially with a sifter handle that once tried to slice off my finger- long story.  Try to think of something else while you're sifting, or call your Mom, or listen to some soothing music.  The point is, you really do need to sift the sugar, and you will be more thankful when your frosting comes together, all beautiful and smooth.)

• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

In your mixing bowl, cream butter.  Add eggs, mix.  Add milk, lemon juice, zest, vanilla & almond extract and blend well.  Add cake mix and combine thoroughly.  Gently fold in the blueberries.

Fold in frozen berries gently
unless you want purple cake.

Spoon into paper-lined cupcake pan.  Bake for about 24-28 minutes, or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.  Allow to cool completely before frosting (coconut oil is very heat-sensitive).  You'll end up with about 18 cupcakes.

On to the frosting!  In your mixing bowl, cream butter.  Add coconut oil and combine well.  Add sifted sugar while mixing, one cup at a time, to prevent powder-coating your kitchen.  The mixture should look all crumbly, and a little like fake snow.  This part is pretty neat to watch - add the lemon juice and vanilla and mix thoroughly - the mixture rapidly transforms from crumbly mess to velvety smooth frosting!  You can spread this on with a knife, or you can go the fancy route with a decorating bag and tip (this makes for a great presentation, and it's just plain fun.)  When you're done, serve or store in an air-tight container (if there are any left).  Enjoy!

We got the beets!

Pickled Golden Beets ready for eating!

Pickled beets have a tendency to disappear in my household, like they were 'going out of style' or something.  Yes, I eat some too, but the rate at which they vanish is rather alarming.  So, I have taken to preparing them at home.  This seems to be somewhat more cost effective (I think. I haven't actually sat down and crunched the numbers).  And really, that's not the only point.  The bigger issue is controlling the amount of unwanted 'extras' in your food.  By preparing your own food from scratch, you can eliminate a lot of preservatives and other unsavory ingredients.

When setting out on the quest of preparing home-made beets, one must decide whether to go for the refrigerator-canning method, or shelf stable.  I'm still somewhat intimidated by shelf-stable canning (though I've heard that its not very complicated...perhaps I shall attempt this in the near future), so I continue to opt for the fewer-steps refrigerator method (throw whatever it is you made in a clean jar with a lid, and put it in the fridge).

When I made pickled beets for the first time, I had found a relatively simple recipe for refrigerator pickled beets.  My husband, a self-proclaimed pickled beet aficionado, tasted this first batch and declared it to be much too sweet.  I agreed (he comes from one of the regions in Europe - former Yugoslavia - where people eat a lot of pickled food, so this is one area of cooking where I don't argue - in fact, I'm just going to own up to it and say that, in reference to anything pickled, he's right most of the time).  Several batches later, I had honed the recipe amounts down to a very tasty, much less sweet version (about 1/4 the sugar, more vinegar & garlic), which I followed for this batch.

(These amounts are for a large batch -  about 6 or 7 lbs of beets - I wasn't kidding when I said they disappear FAST.  You can cut the amounts in half for a smaller batch.)

6 to 7 pounds fresh beets (This time I was able to buy all organic, and there were golden beets available!)
6 cups vinegar
4 cups water
1 cup sugar
8 to 10 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced (you can add more if you like)

You can bake or boil your beets (the cooking method for the beets and the brine are pretty spot-on in the original recipe).  I use the boiling method (I feel like its easier to monitor them this way, especially if your beets are different sizes or vary greatly in size from one batch to the next).  The larger the beets are (the ones in this batch were particularly gargantuan), the longer they will need to boil.  The original recipe says about 25 to 30 min.  I use this as a starting number, and poke the beets with a fork every additional 5 to 10 minutes or so.  As they reach 'fork-tender,' I remove them one-by-one, and place them in a bowl to cool (this way, all beets can be evenly cooked regardless of size).  I usually make the brine while the beets are cooking (to a large saucepan add vinegar, water, sugar and garlic, "bring to a boil, stirring until sugar melts. Reduce heat and let simmer approximately 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool before adding the cooked beets." - method from whatscookingamerica.net).  Then you may go wreak havoc somewhere else, and everything will be cooled off and ready for assembly when you return.

No pink hands here.

Hand peeling is a great way to get
involved with your food.
(it's also the least wasteful method)

When they're cool enough to handle, beets are very easy to hand-peel (pushing with your thumbs) but please - do yourself a favor and wear gloves, or you will have vibrantly pink hands for a few days.  Slice the beets, place in clean glass jars, pour in enough brine to cover, put on the lid, and shake like the dickens! This will make sure the bits of garlic are evenly distributed and will remove any air bubbles that may be trapped between beet slices.  (If there are a lot of air bubbles, you may need to top off with more brine after shaking.  Also, you really want to be sure you have a decent jar and lid that seal tightly, unless you are redecorating).

Another note about glass jars...
Glass jars are wonderful for storing a number of things; beets, home-made salad dressing or spaghetti sauce, home-made apple sauce, lemon juice, etc.  They're better for you than plastic storage (No BPAs or phthalates), and they go through the dishwasher like a charm!  Plus, if you find jars with the right size mouth - you can replace any lids that might rust with Ball canning lids. Bonus!  So the next time you are grocery shopping, think not only about what you need to buy, but the container it comes in - some brands of spaghetti sauce, coconut oil, jams, salad dressings, and other foods come in heavy, quality glass jars that can withstand a little heat.  I am developing quite the collection, as my husband will attest, though he doesn't complain about them if I am making pickled beets.....funny.

Said to Husband:
 "No, my collection of  glass jars is
not taking over the kitchen.

Delicious!

So, into my wonderful glass jars went all those organic beets.  I was particularly excited to see the brilliant color of the golden beets! (The more bright colored vegetables you can get into your diet, the better: lots of carotenoids and antioxidants.)  Here's to eating more veggies and happy pickling!