Canadian Lentil Contest: Best in Baking

Remember these cupcakes?  They're the Red Velvet Lentil cupcake that My friend, Ron, and I blogged about here.

I was beyond excited to get a mid-day call from Ron while at work letting me know that we had won our category (Best in Baking) in Canadian Lentil's Recipe Revelation contest.  Click on the e-book below to see some of the submissions and the four winning recipes:

Red Velvet Lentil Cupcakes

Today's post is special. Not just because it documents making these delicious cupcakes:

This post is special because it's a collaboration post, written by me and my friend, "Ron". Ron and I have been taking on "kitchen projects" ever since we discovered that we can bake/cook together and keep our friendship in tact. It all started with an explosion of cookies, then we moved on to preserving peach jam, apple pie filling, apple sauce and tomato sauce.

Our collaborations work well. When one person is fading, the other takes the lead and when one person is veering too far from the recipe (*Ron*), the other reminds him that we don't want to ruin everything.

So....without further ado....HERE'S RON!

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I’ve always been a fan of the lentil. As a university student living on next to nothing, I have fond memories of boiling water with lentils on a hot plate and adding a dash of curry powder – both quick and delicious! When Psychgrad mentioned that Lentils.ca was holding a contest for the best lentil recipe, I screamed a little. Not out of fear, but out of excitement because I always love an adventure in the kitchen.  

At the end of the post, we explain how the contest works and how you can

 help us win (or at least have a decent showing).  

Canadian lentils are itty-bitty nutrition powerhouses. One cup of lentils contains 18 grams of protein and 16 grams of fibre. What’s more, lentils are jam packed with vitamins and minerals including iron and manganese. Lentils are inexpensive and easy to prepare as they don’t require soaking like beans, and can be cooked in about 20 minutes.

In deciding on a recipe to submit we threw around a number of ideas like a curry (too cliché), a salad (too easy) or soup (too fussy). I thought back to when Psychgrad and I had cupcakes at Flour Shoppe and it came to me – why don’t we make lentil cupcakes?!

We quickly decided to make red velvet lentil cupcakes.  But, we figured that since we were including a health-conscious ingredient like lentils, we had to find a natural alternative to red food colouring.  After doing some research, we found that red beets would be perfect for this.  If stored properly, beets can keep for a long time, making them perfect for winter baking experiments!

We started off with two approaches. In the first, we take a gluten free spin by replacing white flour with finely ground dry lentils or lentil flour.

In the second, we add cooked red lentils to the cake batter as a way to increase the nutritional value of the sweet treat.

Recipe #1 Gluten Free Red Velvet Lentil Cupcake 


1 large red beet (3/4 cup of puree)

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 package (~120 g) of cream cheese, softened
1 1/4 cups of white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp of vanilla
1 cups lentil flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp cocoa powder

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.  Bake beets for about 40 minutes (until soft).  While beets are cooking, prepare your lentil flour by pulverizing them in a higher power blender like a vitamix or blendtec.

Note: Preparing the beets ahead of time would speed things up.

2. Once beets have cooled, peel beats and cut into large chunks.  Place into food processor and blend until smooth.

3. Cream together butter and cream cheese.  Add sugar and blend until smooth.  Add eggs and vanilla and blend together.

4.  In a separate bowl, blend together flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa.  

5.  Slowly incorporate dry ingredients into wet ingredients.

6.  Fold pureed beets into mixture.

7, Fill cupcake cups about 2/3 full.  Bake for 20 minutes.

Note: makes about 12 cupcakes. 

Verdict: The result is similar in texture to a corn meal muffin, but tastes surprisingly good!  The next recipe, which uses all-purpose flour instead of lentil flour, tends to come out less dense and redder in colour.  The red lentil flour has an orange tint to it, which is visible inside the cupcake, whereas the white all-purpose flour results in a more brilliant and consistent red throughout.

Recipe #2: Red Velvet Lentil Cupcake


This version of the recipe is practically the same as the first, but uses all-purpose flour instead of lentil flour.  As well, 1/2 cup of cooked lentils (pureed) are added just before folding in the pureed beets.

To ice the cupcakes, we used a simple butter cream recipe like the one described here. Our icing technique followed that used by Babycakes in New York City, as shown in this video with David Lebovitz and Erin McKenna. Psychgrad had some trouble with the “dip, dip, swirl”, but I thought it was a breeze ;-).



The final product was really delicious.  We loved that the lentils offered a great, gluten free option.  The leftovers all went over to a friend's for a Hockey Day in Canada party and were well-received by everyone there.

Now...for the contest part of this.  We need your help!  There are two ways you can help:

#1  Points in this contest are awarded based on the number of "likes" a submission gets on Facebook.  Please click on Lentil Canada's Facebook page, scroll down to our submission and click on "like".

#2  Comment on this post.  We always love your comments.  But, for this post, we really need your comments because points are allotted based on the number of comments we receive on the post.  

Winter Fancy Food Show

Thank you to everyone who participated in our contest last week.  I drew names from a hat...                    

and LeighAnn won!

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Now, let me tell you about my recent trip to San Francisco....

If you follow me on Twitter, @EqualOppKitchen, you probably saw some of these pictures. While I was in San Francisco, I attended the Fancy Food Show.  The show was massive, with over 1300 exhibitors from more than 35 countries.

The show was a feast for all of the senses.  Common foods were antipasto items, cheese, olive oil, cookies/cakes and various drinks or powders to add to drinks.  But, the selection was remarkable.

Canada was well-represented at the show, with an entire pavilion area devoted to Canadian exhibitors.

Here are some products that I found particularly interesting:

These products come from a Canadian company, La Ferme Martinette.  They have a great selection of maple products that can be ordered online.  We made good use of some of these products for pancake brunch today.

This Mozzarella Cheesemaking Kit seems like a really approachable first step to homemade fresh mozzarella cheese.

I wish Kugel Co's sweet kugel were available in Ottawa.  Every now and then I get kugel cravings.  Maybe it's time I bite the bullet and make some of my mom's recipe.

I'm kind of a sucker for interesting syrups.  Blackberry Patch has quite the selection.  I was particularly taken with the Sweet Potato syrup.  Not something I ever expected to see, but apparently it's a versatile syrup.

I was thrilled to get a couple of Tahitian Gold samples.  Vanilla is one of my favourite smells and ingredients.  I've already had some of the vanilla sugar sprinkled on strawberries.  I think I'm going to order a bunch of vanilla to be sent to Giz while she's in Palm Springs because it's quite expensive to buy in the stores here.

I also really like the idea of pairing wine and cookies.  Wine & cheese or wine & chocolate is great, but I think it would be a lot of fun to have a group of girlfriends over to talk about our favourite wine and cookie pairings.

I was also quite taken with these clear packaging options for baked goods.   Makes me want to bake cupcakes and candy apples, just so that I can give them away in cute packaging.   I think they would be great for made-by-hand wedding giveaways.   

I think I'll stop there for now.  But stay tuned for more fancy food posts and travel posts about the rest of our trip!

Penne in a Spicy Tuna Sauce & Contest Alert

My pasta-making repertoire has become a bit predictable as of late.  So, I was really excited when Aurora contacted me to see if I would be interested in participating in their Recipideo Roundup.  Aurora is a Canadian-based company that sells quality Italian products in Canada, the United States and other countries.

Recipideos are short videos, developed by Aurora, showing how to make easy Italian recipes.  Keep an eye out (or follow the youtube channel) for future recipideos.  January's recipideo was Pasta with Spicy Tuna Sauce.  You can watch the video here:



Aurora kindly sent me a few of the products used in the recipe, so I could try them out myself.

I was particularly impressed with the diced tomatoes.  They have 10 mg of sodium per 1/2 cup, this is far lower than the diced tomatoes in my cupboard (even the ones that claim that no salt is added).

The La Bomba, an antipasto spread, is something that I would likely never have noticed on my own (I'm generally a creature of habit who sticks to my staples when shopping).  But I was pleasantly surprised by the nice spice it added to the dish and plan to incorporate it in future dishes.

I included about two tablespoons of the La Bomba in the recipe.  But, since we like our food spicy, I'll probably add even more next time.  I think R also has plans to add some to his special sandwich.

The dish has an unexpected depth to it.  Maybe this came from adding strained tomato.  It was similar  to the depth of flavour that comes from adding a wine reduction to your tomato sauce.

Definitely a winning dish!

But here's the exciting part...

Aurora has offered to send one of our readers the six ingredients you see, below:

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Here's how to participate:

Go check out the Aurora catalogue and then leave a comment here, before Sunday, January 29th at midnight (EST).  In the comment, let me know which product most interests you.  After doing this, I will put your name in a draw to win the prize.

You can also have your name added to the draw a second time by tweeting the following information:

Enter to win specialty Italian food at http://tinyurl.com/7p26zrv @AuroraImporting @EqualOppKitchen

(you can personalize the tweet, if you'd like)

One more detail:

This contest is open to those living in Canada and the United States.  However, please be aware that if you are located in the US, you will be responsible for covering the cost of border tariffs.