cupcake flourless, no sugar..

[priscila]

Hi, I love this chocolate cupcake recipe:
350ml plain flour
370g caster sugar
60g cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
150g chocolate chips
1 cup cold coffee
1 cup buttermilk
225ml vegetable oil
3 large free range eggs

However, I would like to make a flourless, no sugar, no oil, no butter milk, no oil version of it. I would like the cupcake flavour to be chocolate, but the batter to be made of sweet potato and banana (for sweetness). Maybe substitute buttermilk for almond milk with lemon, and vegetable oil with coconut oil. Do you think the cupcakes will rise and be moist? Are there ways of making a fluffy and moist cupcake without these ingredients (maybe even without almond milk)?

 

[Norcalbaker59]

It's not possible to remove all of the ingredients on your list and maintain the integrity of the cupcake. Baking is a chemical reaction.

Even if you use substitutions, the result will be a dense, flat, unappetizing cupcake.

Egg is a binder. Heat denatures the protein molecules causing them to unwind and bond. Egg is also a fat, so it adds moisture. Egg substituted are starches like potato, tapioca, and arrowroot. They are very poor substitutes as they bind into a thick mass. So they make food dense. The add no moisture, but absorb moisture around them, so they cause dryness.

Fat like butter adds flavor and texture. Butter aids leavening by trapping air bubbles when beaten with sugar. The use of fat substitutes like puréed banana or avocado add weight and alter the flavor. The baked good is dense and heavy as they don't trap air bubbles.

There's no substitutions for buttermilk. While you can try to add vinegar to soy milk, coconut milk, or almond milk, they all lack the casein protein that create the flavor and texture of buttermilk. The recipe has baking soda which is an alkaline. If you use baking soda, you have to have an acid to activate it. That's why there's buttermilk rather than regular milk in the recipe. The acidity in the buttermilk will activate the baking soda.

Even sugar substitutes are problematic as sugar substitutes do not caramelize, do not retain moisture, do not add volume.

In if you substitute a gluten free flour, like coconut flour, for the wheat flour, you are still faced with binding and rising issues. While you can add a binder like xanthan gum, binding alone won't create rise. Since there's no gluten, you have to use mechanic leavening and twice the amount of chemical leavened. Since you want to eliminate the butter, your only choice is aquafaba, which is whipped liquid from cooked beans or chickpeas.

By the time your done, you'll have a fruit purée held together with leftover bean cooking water, starch, vinegar, milk substitute, artificial sugar, and cocoa powder. It won't be a chocolate cupcake by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[priscila]

Thank you very much, Norcalbaker! I understand nothing about baking and that is why I decided to ask before baking a tragedy!

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Thank you very much, Norcalbaker! I understand nothing about baking and that is why I decided to ask before baking a tragedy!

Sorry to be the bearer of the bad news.
If you're willing to use a few of the ingredients on your No-No list, you can make a slightly healthier chocolate cupcake. Vegan recipes tend to use less refined ingredients. While not free of oil and flours, they are dairy and egg free. And once you try a few, you can experiment with eliminating or replacing other ingredients.


https://minimalistbaker.com/the-best-vegan-gluten-free-chocolate-cupcakes/


http://ohsheglows.com/2016/05/12/fail-proof-vegan-chocolate-cupcakes-with-salted-buttercream/