Will the Real-est funfetti cupcakes please stand up???? 🙂
Confession:Â I love sprinkles, and cupcakes, and cute baked goods. They brighten my life when everything around me is blue, green, and super hero colored. You know, the 3 boys struggle… it is real folks! I love cupcakes so much I even have one tattooed on my foot, complete with sprinkles and a candy heart. I think that means I’m the official Knower-of-all-things-sprinkles, right? Right!
But then a while ago we kind of had a falling out, the sprinkles and I. I figured out their dirty little secret. It was a little too late, ya’ know with the tattoo and all? The proof was right there, the whole time. All I had to do was flip the little plastic bottle over and take a glance at the ingredients, and we were done-zo for good! Why Wilton, why? Trans fats and artificial colors? How are you going to do me like that Wilton?
I could keep going on about boxed cake mixes, sprinkles, sixlets, and the like but I’ll shorten it up real nice for you… break it off with these products now, it’ll save you in the long run!
Since the sprinkle break-up of my own life I’ve been on the lookout for a better product. Mainly one that is naturally colored and doesn’t contain any partially hydrogenated oil (trans fat). I’ve tried a few different products and while they were all better I liked one brand the best: India Tree Natural Sprinkles. The one big thing that makes these sprinkles different is that the colors don’t bleed once they are on the product. I experienced color bleeding with all of the other brands I tried, although I would still highly recommend them over standard sprinkles any day! One thing I should mention, India Tree’s products are NOT Non-GMO verified, and do contain soy lecithin, which is an ingredient we try to avoid. With that being said, a girl can’t have everything!
You can probably imagine my excitement when a huge rack of India Tree sprinkles appeared at the super-awesome grocery store I frequent. Of course, my husband was along for that trip so it didn’t seem like the right time to go on a naturally dyed sprinkle buying spree. Husbands just don’t understand!
A few days later I was there again and let’s just say I got a few bottles. It’s the Holiday Season! I needed those sprinkles! The internet needs a #betterbaking Funfetti Cupcake recipe! Best part was I got to choose my own mix of colors. Aren’t they puuurrrttty? 🙂
Now comes my whole wheat disclaimer, because I HAVE to say this. I’ve served whole wheat cupcakes to dozens of family members and friends and not one person even questioned them being whole wheat. You know what that means? They didn’t even know. You know what else that means? If you use the right whole wheat recipe your cupcakes will not come out dense and dry like the way people describe whole wheat products. What dense and dry cupcakes? I don’t know because I don’t make them. I promise, you will probably not be able to tell a difference your kids will definitely not know, and your husband will be too busy wondering where all the naturally dyed sprinkles came from to notice either.
This is a whole lot of ‘fetti in my face and I kind of like it! 🙂
Last but not least let’s talk icing. I don’t love a sickeningly-sweet powdered sugar icing. However, I think if you prefer a sweeter icing these would be the perfect compliment! I have quite a few really delicious icing recipes so here are the two that I think match these the best:
Simply Vanilla Buttercream (sweeter):
Ingredients:
- 1 and 1/2Â stick unsalted butter (softened to room temperature)
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 2-3 cups organic powdered sugar
- 1/2 vanilla bean pod or 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
Directions: Soften butter to room temperature while baking cupcakes. This step is very important!! Beat butter until very smooth, scraping down the sides of your bowl numerous times to make sure all lumps are out. Add sour cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla. Add additional 1-2 tbsp. tapioca starch or non-gmo corn starch to thicken icing to desired consistency without adding more sugar.
Naturally Sweetened Cream Cheese Icing
Ingredients:
- 1 (8 ounce) package full fat cream cheese
- 4 Tbsp unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp pure maple syrup
- 3-4 Tbsp tapioca starch
- 1/2 vanilla bean pod or 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
Directions: Soften cream cheese and butter to room temperature. Beat cream cheese until very smooth, scraping down the sides of your bowl numerous times to make sure all lumps are out. Add butter, continue beating until very smooth. Add maple syrup, tapioca starch, and vanilla.
*Recipe adapted from Sally’s Baking Addiction’s: Easy Homemade Funfetti Cupcakes. Have never tried a recipe from her blog that I haven’t loved. Thanks!
Here is the Amazon link to the sprinkles. They are a lot cheaper in stores if you can find them there!
Whole Wheat Funfetti Cupcakes
By November 21, 2014
Published:- Yield: 14 Servings
- Prep: 10 mins
- Cook: 18 mins
- Ready In: 28 mins
Will the Real-est funfetti cupcakes please stand up???? 🙂 Confession: I love sprinkles, and cupcakes, and cute baked goods. …
Ingredients
- 1 and 2/3 cups whole wheat white flour
- 1 cup organic cane sugar
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- 1 egg
- 1 and 1/4 cup buttermilk or 1 cup milk + 1 Tbsp vinegar
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup naturally dyed sprinkles I used India Tree brand
Instructions
- Melt butter, set aside. Mix dry ingredients including flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- In a separate bowl mix wet ingredients including butter, egg, buttermilk, and vanilla. Be sure to let your butter cool a bit before mixing it with your egg.
- Make a well in the center of dry ingredients, pour in wet, and mix gently just to combine. Batter will be very thick. Pour sprinkles on top and gently stir to combine. Bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.
- Top with desired icing (recipes above) and sprinkle with additional naturally dyed sprinkles.
Samantha
This is so exciting! My little sister’s favorite sweets of all time are funfetti everything! So I’m happy to know I can now make a healthier version of her favorite treat 🙂 On another baking note, I have searched the internet (not nearly hard enough I’m sure) but do you by any chance have any good whole wheat peanut butter cookie recipes? They are my boyfriend’s favorite and he’s been such a huge support in our transition to real food and better baking. I thought I would bake him something special, but I can’t find any good tasting real food peanut butter cookies! :/ The one I did try was a, uhmmm…FAIL!
Dana
I’m working on cookie recipes this week testing out some whole wheat versions. I have to say… cookies are a little different then cupcakes as I did notice the texture was a little different (not bad, but different) so I’m going to keep tweaking things to see if I can figure it out. I’ll have to apply it to peanut butter 🙂