A ChipMonk Experiment! Low-Carb Keto 'Blue' Velvet Cupcakes

September 14, 2020

Science!!!

ChipMonk is all about experimentation, but sometimes things don’t turn out as expected. For example, when David, ChipMonk co-founder, hopped into the kitchen to whip up a batch of the ever-illusive Blue Velvet Cupcakes, he ended up with something a little closer to ‘Green Velvet’.😝 Fortunately, they were still super soft, crazy delicious, and completely keto (~1 net carb per serving cupcake!)

Want to try your own experiment? Here’s what you'll need:

2 cups blanched almond flour (220g)
4 tablespoons coconut flour (30g)
1/2 cup (100g) AlluMonk sweetener
4 teaspoons cocoa powder (10g)
1 teaspoon baking powder (4g)
1/2 teaspoon salt (3g)
4 large eggs (200g)
1/2 cup butter (113g)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (8g)
1 teaspoon BLUE food coloring (4g)

And don’t forget the frosting:

4 oz (113g) Cream Cheese
1/2 stick (57g or 4 Tablespoons) Unsalted Butter
1/4 cup (50g) AlluMonk Sweetener
Flavorings of your choice:

Maple Icing
- 1 teaspoon of Maple Extract (McCormick works well)

Lemon Icing
- 1/4 teaspoon Vanilla Extract (McCormick works well)
- 1/4 teaspoon Lemon Extract (McCormick works well)
- 1/2 Tablespoon Lemon Juice (best if squeezed from fresh lemons)

Chocolate Icing
- 1 Tbsp Unsweetened Cocoa Powder (Ghirardelli works well)

Vanilla Icing
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract (McCormick works well)

Raspberry Icing
- 1 teaspoon Raspberry Extract (McCormick works well)
- Red food coloring as needed

Ready? Let's get started:

1. Melt butter & preheat oven to 330°F.

2. Whisk together all dry ingredients

3. Mix together all wet ingredients except food coloring

4. Combine dry and wet ingredients until evenly distributed

5. Fold in food coloring

**pro tip from reddit user /u/bunnybroiler - "Blue velvet is really hard to get right. You have to double up the blue dye and mix a bit of purple in to get a dark blue colour."

6. Pour mix into cupcake molds/liners and place in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes

7. Thoroughly mix together your frosting ingredients with your preferred flavoring

8. Allow cupcakes to cool completely before frosting

And that's it! Unfortunately, our experiment turned out a little greener than expected:

Blue Green Velvet Keto Cupcakes

But the texture and flavor is spot on! And since these cupcakes are made with almond & coconut flours and sweetened with AlluMonk they only have ~1g net carb per cupcake. Low-Carb, Keto Approved!

Yum!

Are you planning your own Blue Velvet experiment? We'd love to hear the results. Email Michael@ChipMonkBaking.com to tell us how it went. And please remember to subscribe to our newsletter for the latest keto baking tips, recipes, and ChipMonk updates. Thanks for reading! 🐿 🐿

NOTES / TIPS

Fill your muffin liners to the top (or almost). Almond flour and coconut flour don’t rise as much as wheat flour, so the muffin liners should be pretty full.
Make sure that your ingredients — especially eggs and shortening/butter — are at room temperature before beginning. If you need to bring eggs to room temperature quickly, you can place them in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes.
Use fresh baking powder. Baking powder makes these cupcakes rise — so you want to double-check that your baking powder is active. To test if your baking powder is still active, place a teaspoon of baking powder in a bowl and pour 1/4 cup of boiling water over it. It should bubble up right away. If it does, it’s still good.
Cupcakes made with coconut flour can stick to paper liners. To prevent this, you can grease the liners with non-stick spray before filling them with batter.
Keep an eye on these cupcakes while baking — coconut flour tends to get really brown, really fast.
Check on it the cupcakes intermittently, and remove them from the oven once a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean.
Let the cupcakes cool completely before eating, especially if you will be frosting them.
These low carb cupcakes store very well. They’re fine on the counter for a few days, or in the fridge for about a week. If you want to store them for even longer, they are freezer-friendly, too!

NUTRITION

When prepared via the above instructions, each cupcake has approximately 265 calories, 25g of fat, 1g net carbs, and less than 1g of sugar. For comparison, the vanilla cupcake from Sprinkles has 543 calories, 61g of carbs, and 45g of sugar!

Note: Net Carbs = Total Carbs - Dietary Fiber - Allulose / Sugar Alcohol.

USEFUL LINKS & ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

If you loved this recipe, check out our other recipes and baking guides on the ChipMonk blog

Guides

Recipes:

Low Carb Sweeteners:

Let us know what you think! Leave a comment or shoot us an email at info@chipmonkbaking.com