We’re back from camping at the coast where we were nestled in a temperate rain forest we love deeply and just a few hours drive away. There is something about living in a tented home that speaks to old memories of the soul. Completely unplugged and uncluttered. It’s renewing and a restorative sacred reminder of how simply we can exist. I was sad to leave.

I went grocery shopping on our return and came home with some beautiful raspberries and felt like cupcakes. Here is my final recipe after some hesitation about adding chocolate, I decided they would be lovely without … and they are! Yes, those are strawberries decorating them, I forgot to keep some raspberries back for decorating! I used mint leaves too.

Summary:

Make sure butter, eggs and cream cheese are all at room temperature. It prevents your batter curdling.

Prep your cupcake pan first. Always nice to get that out of the way. We’ll bake at 350⁰F for +-30 minutes. First, melting butter and sugar together; then whisking the dry ingredients together; separating the eggs and beating the whites until stiff; lastly, adding the beaten egg yolks together with the buttermilk and cream cheese and then mixing the batter all together. While baking, make your icing. I made a butter and cream cheese glaze, adding rose and vanilla essence and a few fresh raspberries.

This may make more batter than a dozen cupcakes, so I made two little dessert treats on the side in little flan dishes.

Recipe:

Ingredients

• ½ a cup of butter (113 g)
• ¾ cup of sugar, I used xylitol
• 4 large eggs, separated
• 3 cups almond flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• ¼ cup coconut flour
• 1 tblspn arrowroot flour (optional, for non-keto use cornflour)
• ½ cup buttermilk
• ¼ cup cream cheese
• 1 tsp vanilla essence or paste
• 1 tsp almond essence
• 1 cup fresh raspberries

Method

1. Melt butter, add sugar and stir until mostly dissolved, add in vanilla and almond essence. Cool
2. Separate 4 eggs and beat egg whites until stiff
3. Mix together dry ingredients (almond and coconut flour etc)and whisk until blended
4. Beat together egg yolks with buttermilk and cream cheese
5. Add cooled butter and sugar mix to dry flour ingredients
6. Stir beaten egg yolk and buttermilk mix into heavy batter, mix lightly
7. Gently fold in egg whites
8. Fold in berries
9. Spoon batter into cupcake cups and place muffin pan into pre-heated oven
10. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes in 350⁰ F oven, or until golden and skewer comes out clean

Make your frosting and when cooled, have fun icing.

For the frosting glaze I whipped up: 3/4 cup cream cheese with 4 tablespoons of butter and a cup of powdered xylitol sugar. I added a few drops of rose, almond and vanilla essence and about a ½ cup of raspberries and beat until I had a lovely icing which I placed in the fridge while the cupcakes baked and then cooled off. It was a long wait!

These are really moist, flavourful and have a lovely crumb. Keep refrigerated.

Camping pic’s:

Keto version of S’mores! A beautiful 400 year old tree, old growth forest and the beach we hiked to through the valley from our tent site and the view from the day we hiked to the top.

This was our tent setup. From left: shower stall, bedroom and the kitchen tent. We put up the hammock later!

I should really have kept a diary of our keto camping menu but it was lovely to have 10 days relaxing.