Yellow Cupcakes

Erythritol is a great sweetener to have in your sugar free pantry. Having some around makes it possible to make cake desserts. It provides the volume and sweetness that regular sugar does, without the other distressing side effects that sugar has. It is a “0″ on the glycemic scale in comparison to other sugar alcohols. The downside to erythritol is it’s cooling effect, which usually refers to the cooling effect it gives in your mouth when you eat it, but I like to think of the cooling effect as twofold: the cool sensation you get when it’s eaten and also what physically happens when erythritol is heated and then cooled.

When heated, erythritol will “melt” into your baked goods and dissolve when mixed with other liquids. However, when erythritol cools back to room temperature, it does it’s best to go back to the original crystalline state that it was in when you bought it in the package. What does this really mean? It means that your delicious cake that was warm and moist out of the oven will quickly become dry in a matter of minutes!

There are techniques to use to keep the cooling effect from happening. My favorite trick is to cream with fat. I usually cream with ghee or solid coconut oil. Surrounding the sugar alcohol with fat almost stops the crystallizing when your cake cools. I say “almost” because the cooling effect will appear again in a few days. I don’t know a cake that makes it very long in my house, so I can live with that. You can also combine erythritol with equal amounts of vegetable glycerine. In addition to adding needed moisture, Vegetable glycerine has a negative heat of solution (or a warming effect) in comparison with Erythritol’s positive heat of solution. Don’t worry about trying to understand the scientific jargon. Just know the veggie glycerine and erythritol work well together. You will need to adjust your liquids in your recipe when using veggie glycerine.

And the recipe? I adapted the Yellow Cake recipe I found in the book, Gluten Free Baking Classics by Annalise G. Roberts. I really like this book. I find it extremely approachable, with lots of good recipes for a lot of basic goodies that are often taken for granted: angel food cake,
shortbread cookies, and sandwich bread. I’ve wanted to make a basic yellow cake for some time now, and she actually had a very straightforward recipe that turned out delicious!

I left these cupcakes naked, as I am still working on frosting. A drizzle of caramel sauce, chocolate sauce or a sprinkle of powdered sugar would be fantastic in the meantime.

1 cup erythritol
1/2 cup ghee
2 eggs
1 1/4 cup of Brown rice flour mix (see below)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (sugar free)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon xantham gum
1/2 cup almond milk

Makes one 9 inch round cake or 12 cupcakes

Brown rice flour mix is:
2 cups brown rice flour
2/3 cup potato starch
1/3 cup tapioca starch