One of my favorite gluten-free snacks is Cotton Candy. Sure, it’s all sugar and food coloring, but it’s also only 100 calories per serving. For awhile my hair was pink, which resulted in my husband remarking several times it must be a result of all of the cotton candy I eat. That’s a possibility, because I really dig pink cotton candy. Once I even considered switching careers and selling cotton candy. (I’m kidding…sorta.*)
This week’s sweet is a chocolate cupcake made with a mix (gasp!) and cream cheese frosting. I topped each cupcake with tiny snowballs made with white cotton candy I bought at the grocery store. I sprinkled a tiny bit of edible glitter on top of each cupcake and inserted a cute snowman cupcake pick into the top. CUTE!
Chocolate Cupcakes from a mix
1 Betty Crocker cake mix, prepared according to directions with one addition: add 1 teaspoon of instant coffee crystals to the water. This deepens the chocolate flavor.
Dairy-Free Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz. container of Tofuttti Better Than Cream Cheese
5 T. Earth Balance vegan buttery sticks
2 t. vanilla bean paste
2 to 3 cups of powdered sugar
In bowl of stand mixer, combine all ingredients except powdered sugar. Blend until well combined. Slowly incorporate powdered sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, until desired consistency is reached.
Cotton Candy Snowballs
Pull out small pieces of cotton candy and gently press into a ball shape. Don’t press too hard or they will become dense balls of sugar. Pile a group on top of your cupcakes and sprinkle with edible glitter (optional). I used five on top of each cupcake.
*Big thanks to the kind cotton candy vendors at the Kentucky State Fair who indulged me in one of my fantasy jobs, selling cotton candy. This lasted all of 45 seconds, until reality set in and the income-consumption ratio became clear to me.
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