Vanilla vegan cupcakes topped with a lavender-hued buttercream icing naturally coloured with fresh blackberries, and topped with dried culinary lavender.

This Vegan Lavender Cupcakes recipe makes fluffy vanilla cupcakes with a perfect crumb, and a sweet lavender coloured buttercream icing that is all natural, without food dyes.

Ingredients in your Vegan Lavender Cupcakes

• All purpose flour

• Vegan sugar such as Wholesome Organic Golden Sugar. This sugar is unrefined and decolourized, so it uses no chemicals or animal by-products.

• Baking soda (not baking powder!) and salt

• Plant milk of your choice. I use Earth’s Own Unsweetened Original Almond Milk as it has a ton of nutrients and only 35 calories per 1 cup!

• Canola oil (though you can use light olive oil or vegetable oil)

• White vinegar. This is to produce a frothy buttermilk-like batter

• Vanilla extract. I use PC Organics Pure Vanilla Extract.

Ingredients in your Lavender Buttercream Icing

• Powdered Confectioners Sugar. I use Wholesome Powdered Confectioners Sugar. It’s organic and fair trade and always 100% vegan!

• Room temperature vegan butter. I use the block style butter rather than the spread, as the block kind typically has more fat in it and will produce a better buttercream. Be sure to keep your vegan butter out of the fridge for a couple hours before using it!

• Vanilla extract

• Plant milk of choice

• Juice of fresh blackberries as natural food colouring.

• Top with dried culinary lavender for decorating and taste (ensure your are using edible culinary grade lavender, not just any type of lavender!)

Blackberries as Natural Food Colouring

Using fruit as a food dye if a great way to achieve beautiful colours, without using artificial food colourings.

These Vegan Lavender Cupcakes actually use the juice of fresh blackberries to get a lovely subtle purple hue. The colour is a subtle and natural looking light purple, rather than a bright saturated purple that artificial food colourings produce. You also have the peace of mind knowing that your cupcakes are made with wholesome ingredients.

While artificial food dyes have gone through safety tests and don’t pose significant risk to health, they’re still not made of the most nutritious stuff. Fruits and vegetables are great natural alternatives that can add colour to baking.

To make this lavender hued buttercream icing, you will simply squeeze fresh blackberries to make a natural purple hued dye. Squeeze some blackberries over a bowl with a sieve on top. This will catch the fruit pieces in the sieve and leave the juice of the berries in your bowl.

Or in a piece of cheesecloth or muslin, twist, and squeeze out the juice into the food to dye. Add more to reach the colour you want. Keep in mind that a buttercream icing is a balance between the dry icing sugar and the liquids you add. Your buttercream icing should be thick, so you want to refrain from adding too much fruit juice or you will have a runny icing.