Giveaway! Cupcakes! Bake And Destroy’s New Cookbook!

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I have one copy of an awesome new cookbook to giveaway! Are you ready? It’s my buddy Natalie Slater’s Bake And Destroy: Good Food for Bad Vegans. I’ve seen her on TV as a judge on Cupcake Wars, so I think that means she’s pretty legit. I’m totally not vegan, but I guess I am a curious and somewhat guilty omnivore. I also have vegan friends, so it will be nice to have some tasty recipes in my back pocket for get-togethers. I had already pre-ordered this book before Natalie contacted me to check out a free copy, but when someone asks if you’ll post a recipe for Banana Bread French Toast Cupcakes … YOU SAY YES.

Screen shot 2013-09-20 at 4.19.45 AMWhat Natalie may not know… is that … I AM THE WORST BAKER EVER. But I always give it my best! I’m optimistically terrible. And what I like about the recipes as I’m flipping through them is that a lot of them fit on one page. This tricks amateurs like me into thinking that the recipes will be really easy, which I like very much, and it keeps me optimistic. Some morsels that catch my eye are: Totchos (tater tot nachos), Spaghetti Cake with Grandma Sharon’s Hater-Proof Sauce, and Whole Wheat Choco-Coconut Donuts! PLUS, the photography is gorgeous AND there are bad-ass illustrations by the one and only Betty Turbo.

And now for your viewing pleasure: Banana Bread French Toast Cupcakes. (My cooking confessions and video summary are below the recipe.)

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Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

CUPCAKES:

  • ½ cup (113 g) mashed overripe banana
  • 1 ¼ cups (156 g) all-purpose flour
  • ¼ teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ¾ cup (150 g) sugar
  • 1/3  cup (80 ml) canola oil
  • 2⁄3 cup (160 ml) rice or soy milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ½ teaspoon almond extract
  • ½ cup (60 g) chopped, toasted walnuts

VEGAN MAPLE BUTTERCREAM FROSTING:

  • 2 cups (250 g) confectioners’ sugar
  • 6 tablespoons (85 g) nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening
  • 6 tablespoons (85 g) vegan margarine
  • 2 tablespoons (40 g) pure maple syrup
  • ½ teaspoon maple flavoring
  • Pinch of salt

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350°F (180°C) and line a twelve-cup muffin pan with paper liners.

Throw your mashed banana in a blender or just smash it with a fork.

Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and sugar into a large bowl and mix well.

In a smaller bowl, whisk together the oil, rice milk, vanilla, almond extract and mashed banana.

Stir or fold the wet ingredients into the dry. Small lumps are fine. Finally, add the walnuts, folding gently.

Fill the liners two-thirds full. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, or until the tops spring back when lightly touched. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove from the pan and let cool completely before frosting.

To make the vegan maple buttercream frosting, beat all the ingredients together in a bowl until they’re light and fluffy.

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Tip: If you have really UNripe bananas like I did, you can slice them and nuke them. I nuked 2 small bananas for 30 seconds. Then you let them sit a little, and they start turning brown. Apparently, according to the internets, the browning is the “ripening.”

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Okay, Confession #1: I didn’t sift the flour because I’m lazy. And also I am house-sitting and have no idea where a sifter is. I know you can use a strainer thingie, but please refer back to the part where I’m lazy.

Confession #2: I used pecans instead of walnuts. I figure this is a preference thing and won’t ruin any cupcakes.

Confession #3: I forgot to add aforementioned pecans before spooning the first 3 cupcakes into the cupcake liners…. so I pushed some in with my finger and tried to cover up the evidence.

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Confession #4: I didn’t toast the pecans. Refer back to the part where I’m lazy.

Confession #5: Let’s talk about the bananas again. Soooooooooo after I sliced my bananas and nuked them and mashed them with a fork… I totally forgot to actually measure them out. I just had 2 mashed bananas in a bowl. And then I dumped that bowl into my liquids. And then I saw all those bananas and thought: OOPS. And then….I scooped some out (covered in soy milk and various extracts) and left what I thought COULD be 1/2 a cup of bananas.

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Final thoughts: YUMMMYYYYYY!!!!!!! I see now that the gel-icing moustaches may have been a mistake. The icing was hard to control out of the tube, and I just sort of made a slimy mess everywhere, so I decided to give myself an icing moustache as well, cuz, WHY NOT.

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I even eat some of my own moustache in this very informative video:


For a chance to win a copy of Bake And Destroy, follow the options on the Rafflecopter widget! You have until Wednesday night at 11:59pm, September 25th!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

53 Comments on “Giveaway! Cupcakes! Bake And Destroy’s New Cookbook!”

  • sara

    says:

    Trying these for Sabbath dessert, thanks for the recepie

  • sarah

    says:

    my favorite cupcake flavor is chocolate peanut butter!

  • Joanna

    says:

    This post made my day. Now I must make some cupcakes. These guys are happening ASAP. Thank you!!!!!

  • Chandra Millbauer

    says:

    Loooove me some banana nut cupcakes 🙂

  • Katherine

    says:

    Lol, I love your confessions! I’m vegan, so I’d love to add this cookbook to my shelf! Also, the icing mustaches are super cute!

  • Ellie

    says:

    Wow these look awesome!! 🙂 xxx

  • Brooke Olenar

    says:

    Looks good.

  • Tabitha Rex

    says:

    My favorite cupcake would be chocolate with chocolate frosting. 🙂

  • Anthea

    says:

    Myum… I would love to try these!
    The last vegan ones I made, were banana chocolate. And I struggled alot, if dark chocolat is really vegan. But they were delicious!

  • Julie H.

    says:

    I like your decision to go with pecans. They are good in banana nut bread. As for cupcakes, I have to go with chocolate. Although I’m open to a lot of different types of frosting on it.

    Now I’m craving them. Sigh.

  • Chelsie

    says:

    My default is red velvet. But if pumpkin spice is available, then heck yes!

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      I admit, I love pumpkin everything…. EXCEPT I can’t get into the pumpkin spice latte. I’ve tried!

  • nora

    says:

    My favey is chai pumpkin with choco chippers! No icing required!

  • lisa

    says:

    strawberry!!

  • Grace Herron

    says:

    MY favorite cupcake flavor is caramel chocolate. Yummies!

  • Christina

    says:

    Those are so cute!! I love that you can be lazy and forget to measure the bananas and still make yummy cupcakes. 🙂
    My favorite cupcake flavor is mint cookies and cream!

  • Sami

    says:

    Ahh, I love Natalie ♥
    It’s actually a crime that I haven’t bought her book yet D:

    My favourite cupcake flavour is Natalie inspired actually!
    I saw she made tropical kool aid cupcakes on her blog so I tried it out with grape kool aid
    BEST DECISION I HAVE EVER MADE!
    http://samispoon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/kool-aid-party.html

    • OOOOH I am so curious about the taste of the kool aid cupcakes!

  • Tracy

    says:

    I love to bake. My favorite is strawberry with cream cheese frosting! Mmm mmm good

  • Liz

    says:

    My favourite flavour cupcake is oreo cupcake!!!! (Oreos are accidentally vegan ^^)
    They’re so yummy with an oreo on the bottom, chocolate cake, then oreo buttercream yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmm

  • Kaylie

    says:

    Hi! This looks awesome! My favourite cupcake flavour is sugar cookie! I baked some sugar cookie cupcakes recently and they were amazing! Thanks for the giveaway!

    • UH, that sounds totally amazing!!!! I want one!

  • Ceinon

    says:

    MY favourite cupcake flavour is a brownie cupcake, especially the one at Babycakes NYC!

  • Barbie

    says:

    Those look so so yummy! My favorite cupcakes are peanut butter with whipped chocolate cream cheese frosting. Not vegan, but awesome nonetheless!

  • kathleine

    says:

    These look amazing! Can’t wait to bake!

  • Ellen Barth

    says:

    Chocolate cupcakes!

  • Kristin

    says:

    I love trying new recipes!! I am not a baker by nature, so this book is right up my alley! Thanks for the fantastic giveaway!

  • Kristin

    says:

    My favorite cupcake flavor is called Mayan Chocolate. It is a fudgy chocolate cupcake with a hint of cayenne pepper mixed in. It is an occasional flavor at The Sweet Tooth Fairy. YUM!!

  • Lynne

    says:

    My son made cookie dough cupcakes with cookie dough filling and I think cookie dough frosting. They were SO SO good.

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      Yum! I love cupcakes with filling!

  • Red Velvet is my top favorite, but this time of year I am all about pumpkin!

  • Crafty

    says:

    lol i think the icing is the best part xD makes it so much more you haha

  • Simona

    says:

    I think it has to be lemon… Love everything lemony!

  • Kelly G.

    says:

    Green tea, with a vanilla buttercream frosting! I’m afraid my cupcakes never look this adorable though. 🙁

  • Chun-Zi

    says:

    Having a tea party this October and I’m encouraging vegan goodies, so these are perfect! Thank you for sharing the recipe. 🙂

  • Ha! I seriously cracked up hard reading and watching all of this! So so good! ha! I’d totally eat 2 of them! 😉 Isn’t the book fantastic? Seriously so many delish looking things! And the writing is beyond hilarious!! Love Natalie to bits!! We’ll be blogging our Indian Buffet Pizza this coming Wednesday…making it today! YUM!

    Love from the NJ Shore!
    xo Jenny

  • Vanessa C.

    says:

    The cupcake flavor to end all cupcake flavors has to be red velvet, as much of a lie as it is. :p

  • Becca F

    says:

    Almond scented yellow cake with almond buttercream frosting

  • Gotta say I’m a traditionalist, I love vanilla bean cupcakes. Yum!

  • Danielle

    says:

    I want you to have your own cooking show… like “Cooking By the Seat of Your Pants with Twinkie Chan”… I don’t watch cooking shows but I would sure as heck watch that one. You could have all kinds of great sound effects and catch phrases for oopsie daisy moments.

    Anyway, that cookbook looks awesome! My favorite cupcake flavor, hmmm… I had the most amazingly delicious horchata cupcake semi-recently, so I think that’s my current favorite but it changes pretty regularly.

  • Jen

    says:

    Cute and tasty desserts are my weakness!

    • Jen

      says:

      I love red velvet cupcakes!

  • Anika

    says:

    These look super delicious! & I love your icing moustaches. :-3

  • Amber

    says:

    My favorite cupcake flavor is pumpkin with cream cheese frosting.

  • Jasmine Gee

    says:

    Pumpkin && Carrot are my favorite♡.♡.

  • Heather

    says:

    Oh this recipe looks so good! and I love a good cookbook!! I love bananas and french toast!!!

  • Heather

    says:

    I love red velvet and cream cheese frosting

  • Damaris

    says:

    My favorite flavor of cupcake is peanut butter!

  • Kady

    says:

    banana pudding!

  • Priscilla R

    says:

    The book looks awesome. I love cupcakes! My favorite flavor are chocolate with a creamy filling. 🙂 yum!
    Thanks for the giveaway!

  • Renee G

    says:

    I love carrot cupcakes.

  • Janice

    says:

    I’m NOT a vegan, but I bet this cookbook could convince me to become one! This cookbook looks so cute!!!

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