Maple Mushroom Cupcakes

 

For Christmas 2024, the Engineer gave me a book called Vegetable Cakes, by Ysanne Spevack – at my request, don’t worry! My mother saw it and it was right up her alley too, so she picked a recipe that we made together: these maple mushroom cupcakes. I’ve simplified the instructions below, and the frosting recipe is mine (the original called for a tofu frosting, but since both my mother and I agree that those frostings are always failures IRL, we improvised). These cupcakes were surprisingly good!

For the cupcakes
2 cups (250 g) whole wheat flour
4 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. ground cardamom
½ tsp. pink or sea salt
400 g (14 oz.) button mushrooms
½ cup (1 stick) lactose-free butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup (115 g.) coconut sugar (we used brown sugar)
2 eggs
½ cup almond milk or lactose-free milk
2 Tbsp. maple syrup
½ cup (75 g) black sesame seeds
a cluster of small edible mushrooms, for decorating

For the frosting
1 cup (2 sticks) lactose-free butter, at room temperature
1 ¼ cup (250 g) powdered sugar, sifted
2 Tbsp. maple syrup
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 pinch of pink or sea salt

Preheat the oven to 350 °F. Line a muffin tin with paper liners (the original recipe says the yield is 9 cupcakes; we made 15).

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, cardamom, and salt in a medium bowl.

Wipe clean the mushrooms, then chop them roughly but quite finely (we did this in the food processor). Aim for the size of Puy lentils, though it doesn’t matter if this is accurate.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and coconut sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing after each addition.

Turn the whisk up to medium and beat while you add half of the almond milk. Add half of the flour mixture, then the rest of the almond milk, the maple syrup, and finally the rest of the flour mixture and the sesame seeds, beating to combine after each addition. Fold in the chopped mushrooms.

Spoon the mixture evenly into the cupcake liners and bake for 23 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting.

To make the frosting, beat together the butter and powdered sugar, then add the rest of the ingredients. Frost the cupcakes as desired, using mushrooms or sesame seeds to decorate if you wish.