For the first week of my Free Inquiry Project, it lined up perfectly with my friend Macie’s 24th birthday! So I didn’t really have to think much about what I was going to make… or so I thought. I thought making birthday cupcakes was going to be easy, but when they have to be gluten free and something that everyone will hopefully like, it actually proved to be more of a challenge than I thought.
Macie is celiac, and to my surprise, so are three other classmates, so it just made sense to make this week all gluten free since they were for Macie anyway. My plan was to make Macie 4 regular sized cupcakes for her birthday, and then make mini cupcakes for my classmates… not because I don’t like them as much as Macie but because I realized that this inquiry project in itself is going to be more expensive than I thought, so mini cupcakes seemed like the right move. So I made my way over to my BFF Pinterest to find some ideas. The nice thing about Pinterest is that when you search for something specific, it comes up with similar recipes to the algorithm that it thinks I would like, so the possibilities were truly endless.
I made Gluten Free Vanilla Cupcakes with Raspberry Filling and Whipped Vanilla Bean Frosting for Macie. And I packaged them in a really cute box that reminded me of a funny conversation we had early last semester. She turned 24 and she was having a 24k Gold Birthday Party so I obviously wanted to follow suit, so the cupcake liners were gold as well as the sprinkles on top.
For the rest of my classmates, I made the mini versions of Macie’s. However, I quickly realized that filling these mini cupcakes with any kind of filling would be difficult so instead of raspberry filling, I strained the filling and made a sauce and I mixed the sauce into the frosting to make Whipped Vanilla Bean Raspberry Frosting. Sounds like a lot- I know, but it was worth it.
I was a bit nervous going into the first week of this project with a fully gluten free recipe. I have baked gluten free items before, but I am not the most confident…. My first critic was my dad. He had been watching me make them all night and I knew I had to save one for him. At first I didn’t tell him they were gluten free because I had a feeling he would rate it differently because of it. He took one bite and he told me they were the best cupcakes he has ever had. And sometimes, he doesn’t have the nicest things to say, so I was completely shocked. He ate the whole thing within seconds before I even had the chance to tell him they were gluten free. He said he couldn’t even tell. HUGE win for me. Made me feel really confident sharing them with my friends. He also said the frosting was some of the best he has ever had. I was a bit selfish in the fact that I really do not like most cake frosting- buttercream being my least favourite, so I searched the internet for other kinds and I ended up mixing 2 recipes together and to be honest with you, it was some of the best frosting I have ever had- I am impressed with myself. It was a combination of whipped cream cheese frosting and vanilla bean frosting. I definitely will be making it again!
I am sharing my snacks with my ED-D 408 Prosocial Behaviour class on Tuesday mornings at 8:30am. It’s kind of funny because there are some people in that class that I still don’t know because they are from the other cohort, but they are quite happy to indulge in my snack series, so it is what it is. I wasn’t really sure how to get feedback at first. Do I print out a small form for each person to fill out? Do I just get them to verbally tell me and I write it down? This first one was awkward because I hadn’t figured it out, until one of my friends suggested a google form to drop into the discord for everyone to fill out when they had the chance, so that is what I will do next time!
Some of the comments I got from this weeks snack:
⭐️Cupcake is moist- slightly grainy from being gluten free but good and the icing is good⭐️
⭐️ 9/10 because some parts tasted a bit floury- maybe because of the gluten free flour?⭐️
⭐️ I don’t usually like cupcakes, but I really liked these ones⭐️
⭐️Icing was light and delicious, some of the best icing I have ever had ⭐️
⭐️SOOOO GOOOOD⭐️
Overall, I am quite pleased with this week’s edition of Food For Thought; A Snack Series. Come back next week to find out what I make next!