Peanut Butter Pupcakes with Sweet Potato Frosting
You can use all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, or all oat flour to go gluten-free in this recipe.
- Prep Time: 25 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 36 mini cupcakes 1x
- Category: Special occasion
- Method: Baking
Ingredients
For the dog cupcakes
- 1 cup AP flour
- 1 cup oat flour (make oat flour by blitzing rolled oats in the food processor)
- 1/2 cup peanut butter protein powder (we used this one available on Amazon.com—just be sure there are no artificial sweeteners, and ideally, no other ingredients besides peanuts if you can find that)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 large eggs
- 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup Greek yogurt
- 1/4 cup natural peanut butter (make sure there is no xylitol, which is dangerous for dogs)
- 1 cup water (you may need more or less to create the thickness you need for your batter)
For the frosting
- 2 sweet potatoes
- 1/4–1/2 cup Greek yogurt (non-fat works just fine)
- optional: 2-3 Tbsp instant pudding mix. Make sure you use a mix with no artificial sweeteners. We used banana cream instant Jell-o pudding.
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
Grease two silicone mini cupcake silicone molds and place onto cookie sheets for easy movement. We used these 24 cup mini muffin pans from Amazon.com.
In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients and stir with a fork to mix and eliminate any lumps.
Add all the wet ingredients being sure to save the water for last.
Add one cup of water and stir to combine. The batter will be half lumpy and half chunky until the peanut butter powder rehydrates!
Add the second cup of water, stir to mix, then set aside a few minutes to allow the peanut butter powder to finish hydrating.
Add more water if needed to create a nice cake batter. Not too soupy, not too thick to pour is ideal. You can always add another smidge of the protein powder to absorb an excess of liquid.
Once the batter is ready, spoon into the mini molds. You should have enough batter to fill both silicone molds plus a little more—I usually do a few fancy shapes like bones or paw prints to be the centerpiece of my cupcake display.
Bake for 20 minutes and test with a toothpick to make sure it’s done. You want the cakes to be springy with just a hint of color on the bottom. Add time as necessary.
While the cakes are baking, set a pot of water to boil for the sweet potatoes.
Peel and dice the sweet potatoes and boil until fork tender.
Drain most of the way (a little bit of cooking liquid is fine), and pulse in food processor until the texture starts smoothing out.
Add the yogurt and powdered pudding mix and continue to pulse until no lumps remain and you have a nice thick frosting-y texture. You can add a little more powdered pudding to thicken, or a little water or more yogurt to thin.
Put your “frosting” in the fridge until your cakes are out of the oven and cooled completely.
Once the cakes are ready, frost away to your heart’s content. This thick frosting substitute works great with large pastry tips for big beautiful swirls of healthy frosting.
Decorate with sprinkles, dog treats, or whatever your pup likes best.
Happy birthday Bowie!
Notes
Keep your finished cupcakes in the fridge until serving and use within five days. The unfrosted cakes can be frozen for up to three months and thawed at room temperature for a quick celebration any old time.