I really want to try a lot of vegan recipes with this project, because I find that there are a LOT more vegans in my life than I thought, and everyone should be able to enjoy a cupcake or a cookie without completely going against everything they stand for.
This weekend is Rob’s birthday, so I thought it would be a good chance for me to try out a vegan recipe. This one comes from “Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World” by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.
This recipe was fairly easy to make, and didn’t require a trip to Whole Foods for some bizarre ingredient like agave nectar. It really only required me to buy soy milk, soy yogurt, cloves and cardamom. I already had everything else on hand.
You’ll notice that the cardamom isn’t there. That’s because a jar the size of that pepper container was $11.50. That tiny little jar of cloves was nearly $7! I wasn’t ready to part with almost $20 for two spices, so I skipped the cardamom. I’m sure it would have enhanced the cupcakes that much more, but yikes, with the economy this bad, who can spend that much on spices?
Step one in this recipe was to heat the soy milk and then add black tea bags and let them steep for ten minutes. Once that was over, I ended up with this:
That was added to the yogurt, as well as oil and sugar and whisked until the yogurt lumps were gone. Then I mixed in the dry ingredients, which included what amounted to an entire spice rack. Cinnamon, cloves, ginger and even pepper went into the mix! Once everything was combined, the batter (which was incredibly thin) went into the cupcake tins:
The recipe instructed me to fill the tins completely up. Once they baked for 20 minutes, I ended up with this:
I hate it when cupcakes have that little ridge around the edges, where they puff out and over the tops of the tins. My advice for this recipe would be to not fill them up all the way, but almost. The batter made eight cupcakes, but I really should have divided it out better and made nine. I think they would have come out without that little ridge if I had.
The recipe advised a simple powdered sugar/cinnamon/nutmeg/cocoa powder dusting, but I gave Rob the option of that or the vegan buttercream frosting. He went with the powdered sugar concoction, which I think was probably the best decision. I think a buttercream would have overpowered the spiciness of the cupcakes.
I decided to get a little fancy with the decoration, seeing as how these were part of Rob’s birthday present! So I made a little stencil out of tin foil for the cocoa powder/cinnamon/nutmeg part of the equation:
I think they came out pretty cute!
The cupcakes tasted really good, although they had almost more of a muffin consistency than that of a cupcake. I don’t mind. I like muffins, too!
I can’t believe I’ve already baked a month’s worth of stuff! I kind of threw off the schedule by baking something on Saturday instead of Wednesday. I plan to bake again on Saturday for my next two projects. Next week will be Peanut Butter Bombs, a favorite of a friend of mine who is a vegan chef. The week after that will be Vegan Vanilla and Chocolate Cupcakes, which will serve a dual purpose. But more on that in two weeks.
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