“Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World”

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Week Six: Vegan Vanilla and Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes

February 9, 2009 in "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World", Cupcakes | 1 comment

(Both of these recipes came from “Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World” by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.)

Things were going so well. I was getting a little cocky. I guess the time had to come.

This week, I experienced my first baking failure.

To preface this project, let me explain the dual purpose I hinted at before. I suggested that the bookstore where I work should have a cupcake decorating day, as a store in another city did this around Christmas. My store decided to do it as a Valentine’s project, so I and one of my managers each baked some cupcakes and then we went out and bought fun pink and red decorations.

I decided to bake vegan cupcakes, not only to fulfill my week’s project, but also to provide such cupcakes to any vegans who might show up (and to expose children to the idea). So I thought I would bake vanilla and chocolate for a little variety:
Makin' cupcakes

The chocolate ones turned out fantastic:
Vegan chocolate cupcakes

The vanilla ones, however, were a different story. The recipe gave me the option of using either margarine or canola oil. I had the canola oil on hand, so I went with it. The recipe instructed me to use 1/4 teaspoon of salt, but to increase it to 1/2 teaspoon if I was using the oil. The chocolate ones did not include these instructions.

Biting into those vanilla cupcakes was like biting into a salt lick…WHOA! I don’t know what happened, but 1/2 teaspoon was just way too much salt for 12 little cupcakes:
Vegan vanilla cupcakes
Salty

There was only one place for these salty dogs to go:
Awww

Anyway, the chocolate ones went over great. The kids (and adults) at work had a great time dumping conversation hearts and cinnamon bears all over their cupcakes. (Unfortunately, I couldn’t take any photos at work.)

So if anyone else has run into this problem, let me know. Or has everyone else just used margarine?

Tune in next week when I’ll be making Milk-Chocolate Cookies with Malted Cream!

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Week Four: Vegan Chai Latte Cupcakes

January 25, 2009 in "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World", Cupcakes, Weekly Baked Good | 1 comment

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.

Cinnamon, ginger, cloves and pepper
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:
Tea-infused soy milk

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:
Filled tins

The recipe instructed me to fill the tins completely up. Once they baked for 20 minutes, I ended up with this:
Vegan Chai Latte Cupcakes
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.
Powdered sugar layer down

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:
The heart stencil

I think they came out pretty cute!
Decorating cupcakes

Cupcake Hearts

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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