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Cupcakes - The Newest Vegan Treat

Minneapolis bakeries adapt to changing tastes

By Pamela Koller

Ever since Carrie Bradshaw sat on a park bench in front of Magnolia Bakery where she gustily peeled the ruffle cup off her Barbie pink cupcake while dreaming about her boyfriend, women everywhere fell hard for cupcakes. Now Sex and the City tour busses deposit diehard Carrie fans to this cupcake mecca to wait in lines around the block around the clock at Magnolia Bakery on Bleecker St. in the West Village in New York City.

That same kind of cupcake drama is played out every weekend right here in Minneapolis.  Sheela Namakkal owns the catering company Miel y Leche but has found a way to placate her numerous fans by selling her gourmet cupcakes out of the unlikely location of an Uptown stationary store. Cupcake fans know to arrive early in order to get the best choice before they’re all gone. Namakkal always includes two or three vegan versions, which often sell out before her traditional cupcakes do.

Though Namakkal doesn’t count herself as vegan, much of her family and closest friends are, so she is always working on more recipes that suit their needs as well as making her cupcakes delicious.  On the point whether vegan cupcakes can be considered ‘healthy,’ Namakkal admits vegan cupcakes are still packed with sugar and fats such as oil, margarine or shortening. “I do consider my vegan cupcakes to be ‘healthy’ in the sense that I do not use any dairy, eggs, or other products derived from animals,” Namakkal explained, “but I wouldn’t say they were ‘healthy’ like a carrot!”

Calorie counts for cupcakes are a deep, dark secret in the bakery world; only a few major traditional bakeries admit to nutritional information, including calorie counts, and no local bakeries are forthcoming with this information.  But, you can be sure that the calorie range starts with 100 calories for a mini-size cupcake and a basic cupcake might begin at 170 calories. From there you will see a steep increase up the scale to a whopping 550 calories for a single cupcake. As Namakkal said, there is no reason to imagine that vegan versions of cupcakes are any less calorie laden than their traditional counterparts.

French Meadow Bakery is a local health food bakery and café, and it promotes the philosophy that meals prepared with the highest quality fresh, local and organic ingredients are the building blocks for a healthy and happy life. The bakery sells a special vegan cupcake called “Chocolate Babycake,” whose tasty combination of moist chocolate cake with its sweet chocolate ganache icing reminds one of the classic childhood treat, a Hostess CupCake. All that’s missing is the creamy filling and signature squiggle on top. Retro pleasure and vegan satisfaction all in one!

Another local outlet for vegan treats is the 100% vegan raw restaurant Ecopolitan. Owner Dr. Tel-Oren describes the baking process as not really baking, but dehydrating, because Tel-Oren feels that nutrients in food are eliminated if they are baked at a high temperature. “Our philosophy here at Ecopolitan is we like to eat our food as close to the way nature intended,” Tel-Oren said.  But Ecopolitan makes carrot cakes with carrot pulp, raisins, walnuts, and spices, topped with cashew cream frosting. Even though Ecopolitan’s bakery products are sweet, Tel-Oren doesn’t use any concentrated sweeteners in his kitchen. How does he get his cakes and pies so sweet? “We just use fruit and dried fruits— that’s it,” Tel-Oren said.

Brie Roland is vegan and is the assistant deli manager and baker at Linden Hills Co-op. At the young age of 23, Roland has six years experience working in organic cafes and wants to open a vegan restaurant or bakery someday. She is proud to have steered the co-op deli in the directionof vegan baking, like cupcakes.

Vegans choose to avoid using or consuming animal products, and also avoid dairy and eggs.  Since adhering to veganism while baking is tricky, vegan bakers are creative in finding substitutes for eggs, including a ripe banana, ground flaxseed, silken tofu, applesauce, or vinegar and baking soda. To avoid baking with cow’s milk, vegans use various kinds of milk: rice, soy, hazelnut, cashew, almond and coconut milk.

The frequent use of butter in traditional baking causes another problem. Canola oil and non-hydrogenated non-dairy butter are the cruelty-free ways vegan bakers stay true to their ideals and still make food taste good.

Vegan baking isn’t necessarily more difficult than traditional baking. As Namakkal said, vegan cupcakes are comparatively very easy to bake at home. “It’s just about substituting some things, not a problem at all,” she said. 

There are many reasons people choose to adopt the vegan lifestyle.

For Roland, being vegan has a lot to do with her personal choice to reduce energy consumption. “It takes a lot more energy to produce meat than it does to produce vegetables,” Roland said. “This is one way I choose to reduce my footprints.”

Vegan cupcakes aren’t widely accepted everywhere, though. At the foot of Tower Hill Park in southeast Minneapolis, a blue coffee cup as big as a car hangs off the corner of the industrial brick Art & Architecture building signalling you to enter Cupcake, the combination cupcake bakery and coffee house.  The bakery case holds dozens of varieties of cupcakes catagorized as simple cupcakes, gourmet cupcakes, premium and cute mini versions called “Babycakes.” 

But do they offer vegan cupcakes? Cupcake owner and baker Kevin VanDeraa admits that from time to time, they do make vegan cupcakes, however they are not big movers. “I know the vegan market is growing,” said VanDeraa, “but our customers’ demand for vegan cupcakes is not huge.  What doesn’t sell, we don’t make again. With cupcakes, it’s ‘move it or it’s thrown out’.  Our customers are used to us not having vegan cupcakes so they eat what we sell.”

Those who are skeptical about the vegan consumer demand are few, and the good news is by visiting local bakeries and co-ops, Twin Cities vegans have many options to enjoy a cupcake while still being good to their bodies and the Earth.