February 24, 2012

Vegan chocolate & mint cupcakes

Delicious!

I finally got to break open my kelly green gel paste. Whoohoo! I had quite a hankering for chocolate cake the other day and was reminded of how easy it is to make a vegan one. Richard's mom has the best cake recipe for a rich, moist, chocolate-y cake. I started to think about complimentary flavours and at the same time looking at my pots of gel food colouring - which, by the way, I bought for only $1.10 each. Score! Peppermint came to mind, because it was also kind of snowy but kind of sunny and the birds were chirping and squirrels were rustling about and..well now I'm just making up excuses. Mint and chocolate are glorious together, period! Oh, and having said that...I found to a carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer waiting for me. I'm going to be like, nine gazillion pounds in no time. Here's the recipe for a half batch.

Vegan chocolate cupcakes
Makes 6 standard, 12 minis (double the recipe for a 9 inch round cake)

Ingredients
  • 3/4 cup all purpose flour
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons cocoa powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup sugar (minus 2 tablespoons, for less sweet)
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/2 cup water or brewed coffee
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or other extracts, go wild!)
  • 1 tablespoon white or apple cider vinegar
Directions
  1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a muffin pan with paper liners.
  2. In a large bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt and sugar. Mix until it's all combined.
  3. To that same bowl, dump in all your wet ingredients except the vinegar.
  4. Stir until you've got a pretty smooth batter, making sure all your dry ingredients are mixed in.  Be careful not to over mix though! You'll end up with a tough and rubbery cake. Angry cupcakes.
  5. Next, pour in your vinegar and stir it gently about 9 times. There will be a chemical reaction because of the baking soda, it's normal. That is how the cake rises!
  6. Right away, put it in the middle of the oven and bake for about 25 - 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 
  7. Cool and decorate with your favourite frosting! I didn't use a recipe for mine, but the one from Magnolia Bakery is easy and straightforward. It's also very easy to vegan-ize; just use (unsalted) vegan stick margarine (not from a  tub!) in place of butter and non-dairy milk for cows milk!

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Hi, I'm Janetta from Toronto. I cook, bake and often veganize recipes. I photograph nearly everything and those photos will most likely end up being posted here. I've got a little black cat named Tank, who's really cute and a little bit nosy. You'll see a lot of photos of her too!

Contact me at: jubesandtank@gmail.com

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