52 Weeks of Baking: Week 2 - LUSH Cupcakes

As you know (or maybe you didn't but now you will) I am participating in the OSPCA National Cupcake Day, fundraising for Guelph Humane Society by selling delicious cupcakes to people. Lush ordered 48 mini cupcakes inspired by the Valentine's Day products for their Rockabilly party on the weekend, and I was only too happy to oblige!

 I did Magic Mushroom last year so that was already in the bag; this year, however, they have a lovely new sweet citrussy massage bar called From Dusk Til Dawn.




















It smells more sweet than, say, Each Peach massage bar, so I decided that maybe adding a bit of almond extract would be a good way to get that in there. The massage bar is lemon and orange, so I used lemon and orange extracts too, and then grated a good chunk of orange peel into the frosting. And then dipped them in gold sanding sugar to complete the look.

From Dusk Til Dawn Cupcakes
 *adapted from the VCTOTW recipe

1 c almond milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
 1 c sugar
1/3 c oil
1 1/4 c flour
2 tbsp cornstarch
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 tsp orange extract
1 tsp lemon extract

Preheat the oven to 350 and line 12 full size or 24 mini plus 3 full size wells.

Mix the milk and vinegar and set aside for a moment. Mix the oil and sugar; beat in the milk and extracts until frothy. Sift in the dry ingredients and stir well, until mostly mixed; a few lumps are okay.

I find an ice cream scoop best for filling big cupcake tins and a tablespoon best for minis. Bake minis for 13 minutes and full sizers for 20. Let 'em cool and then frost.

Orange Frosting

1/2 c 'butter'
1/4 c shortening
3 c icing sugar
grated zest of an orange
1/2 tsp orange extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 tbsp silk creamer or plain almond milk

Beat the butter and shortening together until fluffy. Add half the sugar and beat until incorporated; add half the liquid and beat that in, then add the rest of the sugar, then the liquid and extracts, and beat until smooth and pipe-able. If you like the 'nipple' look that my cupcakes had, pipe using a large open round tip and then dip in gold sanding sugar.

*note: the frosting recipe will do 48 mini cupcakes, not just 24, unless you like to pipe huuuuuge mountains on them thar cupcakes. It will do 12 large cupcakes pretty generously with a little left over.

London Fog Cupcakes - Gluten Free!

I wanted to make London Fog (earl grey + vanilla) cupcakes, I wanted to use up my vegan white chocolate, and I wanted this to be gluten free. So I bought some Bob's Red Mill GF flour, because buying a bunch of various flours and mixing them myself gave me 'okay' but not necessarily 'great' cupcakes last time I ventured into the world of GF, some xanthan gum because Bob told me to, and got to baking.

I worked off my old standby, Isa's VCTOTW Golden Vanilla Cupcake recipe, just modifying a couple of things to make them London Foggy.

Then I made white chocolate orange blossom ganache frosting that was kind of a fail, but still tastes good. I want to try the ganache again sometime, and soon, because I think it could work. I'm not going to post the recipe for it because it was sub par this time, consistency wise.

So, I mail ordered this in the summer and it melted in the mailbox. Probably the reason it failed.

 

 

 

 

 

London Fog Cupakes

1 1/4c milk (as always, I use almond)
8 tsp Earl Grey tea (I used David's Tea Cream of Earl Grey loose leaf)
1 tsp almond milk
1.3 c canola oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp orange blossom extract
1 1/4 c flour (I used Bob's Red Mill GF)
1/2 tsp xanthan gum (only if you're using the GF flour)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp cornstarch (not sure if this is necessary with the xanthan, but I used it anyway. Next time I might try
                            without)
3/4 c sugar

The orange blossom flavour. Smells pretty good, actually, and reminds me of Lush.

In a small sauce pan, bring the milk to a boil. turn off immediately and drop in the tea. I use those paper tea bag things you use with loose leaf tea; if you have a tea ball or the like, you might want to put it in a measuring cup and pour the milk over so that it's fully submerged and you get the maximum steepage.

Preheat the oven to 350. Line 12 cups with cupcake liners.

When the milk/tea has cooled down, squeeze as much out of the bags as possible (after the tea leaes have absorbed the milk, you should end up with 1 c liquid. Discard anything more than 1 c) and then mix the milk with the apple cider vinegar. Set aside to curdle.

Sift together all the dry ingredients. Whisk them up and create a well in the centre. Pour in all the wet ingredients. If you're using the GF mix, whisk them together super well until no lump remain; if you just use regular flour, do the normal 'small lumps are okay' kind of mixing. Divide into the cups and pop into the oven for 20 - 22 minutes. Remove, let cool in the pan for a few minutes, and then put on a rack to cool fully before frosting.

Outta the oven, sporting a lovely tan due to the tea!

If you want to make a normal buttercream and flavour it with vanilla and orange blossom extract, I bet it would be super yummy.

You can see the weirdness of the consistency. Still tasted good.

'Niller Cupcakes

Sometimes, you gotta work out the basics. Nothing is more basic than a vanilla cupcake with almond icing. Well, maybe one with vanilla icing, but you either add 2 tsp vanilla or 1 tsp vanilla and 1 tsp almond, so really, same level of basicness as far as I'm concerned.

I wanted to try a new and fancy recipe. I love VCTOTW but they're the only vegan cupcakes I've ever made; I thought it might be time to branch out into the wonderful world of something else. So I used glorious old pinterest to find 'the BEST VANILLA CUPCAKES EVER!!!eleventy!!!' and veganized the hell out of them. Unfortunately, other than discovering I am masterful at veganization of cupcake recipes, these aren't all that different from VCTOTW and they were more work and required more ingredients. I mean, they're tasty and all. But I wouldn't go out of my way to buy coconut milk yogurt just to make them again. I did skip the whole scraping the vanilla pod and mashing it with the sugar step from the original, because I'm lazy like that, so maybe that would make a big difference. I could also be the wrong person to ask, since I'm a chocolate cupcake gal myself. So keep that in mind and definitely try these out vs your regular recipe and draw your own conclusions.

I asked Ian to take a picture. And I got a cupcake floating in space. What?

Vanilla Cupcakes

2/3 c milk (I use almond)
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/4 c earth balance
1/3 c canola oil
1 c sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1/3 c vanilla coconut yogurt
1 3/4 c flour minus 3 tbsp (this is the stupid shit that happens when the original calls for cake & pastry flour)
3 tbsp cornstarch
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat your oven to 350. Line 16 cups with muffin papers. 16? I KNOW, RIGHT? I hate that kind of thing. So annoying.

Mix together the milk and vinegar. Set aside to curdle. Meanwhile, pull out the ol' kitchenaid or handheld beaters and beat the sugar, oil and earth balance together. It will have a kind of gross consistency. Add the vanilla and milk mixture and beat until well combined.

Sift in the dry ingredients and either beat on slow slow speed or else just use a spoon or spatula to mix it all together. Small lumps are okay, they will bake out. Scoop the batter into the cups and toss in the oven for 15 minutes. Check with a toothpick to see if they are ready; if not, leave them in for another minute or two and check again. Let cool in pans for a few minutes before removing them to a rack to cool the rest of the way.

Almond Icing

1 c Earth Balance, softenend
3 c icing sugar
2 - 3 tbsp soy creamer (I used Silk French Vanilla)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract

Cream the earth balance till it's all nice and, you know, creamy. Beat in a cup of the sugar, followed by a tbsp of creamer. Then, more sugar. Then, more creamer. Then, the last of the sugar. Add the extracts. If it's not quite spreading consistency, add a bit more creamer until it is.

Natural: about to nommed, which as we all know, is the natural state of cupcakes anyway.

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes

Well, there are no words other than to say, this shit is delicious.

Three little maids from school are we

Cupcake Recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World

1/2 c Earth Balance, room temp
3/4 c sugar
1 c 'milk'
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 c flour
2 tbsp cornstarch
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a cupcake pan.
Mix together the milk and apple cider vinegar. Beat the margarine until fluffy, a few minutes. Beat in the sugar and continue to beat for a few minutes. Then add in the milk mixture and vanilla. Sift in all the dry ingredients and mix until no lump remain.
Divide among cups, bake for 20 - 22 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool in pan for 5 minutes before setting on a rack to cool completely before frosting.

They came out pretty flat. Perfect canvas for frosting, really.

Frosting also from Vegan Cupcakes but modified because I hate the mouthfeel of shortening

1 c Earth Balance (I used the new soy-free one, and it was great!)
3 1/2 c icing sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 - 3 tbsp 'milk'

Beat margarine until fluffy, then add in the icing sugar in 1 c increments, adding milk as needed. Beat in vanilla and beat until icing is smooth. I never got it perfectly smooth, probably because I used only margarine instead of half marg and half shortening.

Mix 2 tbsp sugar with 1 tsp cinnamon and dust top of frosted cupcakes with it. Nom.

Pert as a school girl well can be

Whoopie Pies and Lemon Cupcakes

Potluck staff meeting. My choice of foods to bring? Whoopie Pies (vegan AND gluten free!) and Lemon Cupcakes. Obviously.

Plate of delicious treats.

I was going to veganize a recipe for Grand Marnier Cupcakes (chocolate cupcakes filled with Grand Marnier ganache and topped with a Grand Marnier buttercream) and just plain old chocolate whoopie pies, until I received a request for lemon cupcakes. But I waaaant that Grand Marnier!! Solution? Grand Marnier whoopies!

Onwards...

Vegan Gluten Free Whoopie Pies - adapted ever so slightly from The Sensitive Pantry
(I am too scared to make my own GF flour since this is my first foray into the kingdom of GF, so I purchased a 'muffin and cake' GF flour.)

Preheat oven to 375

2 c GF flour
1/2 c cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp instant coffee

Sift all those dudes together and set aside for a minute

1 c 'milk'
1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Mix together in a measuring cup and also set aside.

6 tbsp Earth Balance, softened
1/2 c sugar

Beat these together until light and fluffy. Add in the flour mixture and the milk mixture in 2 batches each. Beat in 1 tsp vanilla and 1 tsp chocolate extract (if you have it. You could just add more vanilla if you don't).

Place in rounded tablespoon scoops onto parchment lined baking sheet. The original says you should get about 28 - 30 cookies out of this. I got 24. That's always my problem. Oh well.

Bake for 8 - 9 minutes, remove from oven and let cool.

Grand Marnier Ganache

2 oz soy creamer
6 oz semi sweet chocolate, chopped
1 tbsp Grand Marnier

Heat the cream and then add the chocolate and stir until melted. Stir in the Grand Marnier. Allow to cool a bit and then spread about a teaspoon or so on the flat side of half of the cookies. You'll have some left over - that's okay, because you can heat it up a bit later and drizzle it on the tops!

Frosting

Traditional Whoopie Pie frosting seems to be primarily made of shortening. I hate the mouthfeel of shortening so we're just going to with a regular vegan buttercream dressed up with some Grand Marnier and orange peel.

1/2 c Earth Balance, room temp
2 c icing sugar
finely grated zest of 1 orange
2 tbsp grand marnier
1 tbsp soy creamer (or and alternate milk if you don't have the creamer)

Beat the Earth Balance until fluffy, then add half the sugar and a bit of the creamer. Beat until relatively smooth, then add the rest of the ingredients and beat until it's normal frosting consistency. Pipe onto the ganache side of the cookies.

Place the other half of the cookie on top and gently mush down. Eat! Share! Enjoy!

So, the lemon cupcakes. I pretty much just made Isa & Terry's vanilla cupcakes but added lemon peel; I also made a lovely lemon curd to fill 'em with and then just a small amount of lemon buttercream to pipe on top to cover up the curd. I actually made two batches, and made a marshmallow frosting to grace the top of the first batch, which was quite delightful also, but I can't remember how I made it. It used Ricemellow Creme is all I recall. I'll make it again at some juncture just so I can share it, because it was really good.

Lemon Cupcakes (adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World Vanilla Cupcakes)

1 c almond milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/4 c flour
2 tbsp cornstarch
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 c canola oil
3/4 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 tbsp lemon juice
finely grated zest of a lemon - a tablespoon or so

Preheat to 350 and line your tin with papers.

Mix the milk and vinegar and let sit for a few minutes. Meanwhile, sift together all the dry ingredients. Make a well in the centre and add in all the wet ingredients and stir until fairly well combined, though not all the lumps have to be totally gone because no one likes a tough cupcake. Place in the oven and bake for 20 -22 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool about 5 minutes in the tin before removing and letting them hang out on a rack till completely cool.

When they're cool, dig out some holes because you're going to fill them with a tsp or so of lemon curd! Yum!

Lemon Curd - From VegNews

3/4 c coconut milk
1/2 c fresh lemon juice
3 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp turmeric
1 tsp lemon zest (I added more because I like SUPER lemon, probably almost a tbsp)

Over medium heat in a small pan, whisk together everything except the zest. Once it's warm, turn the heat down to low and keep whisking until it's pretty thick. Take it off the heat and mix in the zest. Let it cool before spooning into the cupcakes! *Note: this starts off a fairly innocuous colour but it WILL turn the most obnoxious shade of yellow you've ever seen. I can only assume this is due to the turmeric, so if you don't care about colour, you could probably leave it out if you don't have it on hand.*

It's cool if it goes over the top a bit, the frosting will cover it up!

Lemon Buttercream - I only made a half recipe because I only wanted to pipe a bit on; if you want mountainous swirls, double it!

1/2 c Earth Balance, room temp
2 c icing sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp soy creamer
1 tsp vanilla
zest of 1 lemon

Beat the Earth Balance till fluffy. Add half the sugar and beat until mixed in; add everything else and beat until smooth and frosting-y. Pipe onto cupcakes. Om nom nom.

I added a little yellow gel colour to the frosting because I thought it would be pretty!

Valentine's Day Cupcakes

Valentine's Day wouldn't be right without a) cinnamon hearts, b) things that are red and white, and c) chocolate. I decided to combine a and c into Mexican Hot Chocolate cupcakes with cinnamon frosting. Red and white? This hearkens back to Cupcake Challenge 1.0 - making Lush products into cupcakes. The red and white goody I'm converting from bubble bar to cupcake form is Magic Mushroom.
It's a strawberry vanilla scent that smells positively edible, so lends itself particularly well to this project. Also, I figured that I needed to do 2 batches this week since I didn't get any done last week.

I apologize in advance for the instagram photos. The good lens was with Ian (okay, so he DOES own it, but really, leaving my the wide angle? Why not just slap with a polaroid. Yeesh.) so I had to make due. I think they're still cute.

Batch One: Mexican Hot Chocolate with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
I'm a little over piping monstrous swirls of icing on top of cupcakes, for the time being. So I made only a half batch and used my trusty off set spatula to make a nice modest layer instead, and I'm pleased with the results. You get to focus on the yumminess that is the cake instead of being concerned with a half pound of sugar and earth balance getting all over the place.

Cupcakes - adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World - Basic Chocolate

1 c non dairy milk
1 tsp cider vinegar
1/3 c canola oil
3/4 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp chocolate extract
1 c flour
1/3 c cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp (or less) cayenne pepper

Preheat to 350. The magical temperature at which all baked goods bake. Line your muffin pan with cutesy liners. Or plain ones. The choice is yours.

Mix the milk and vinegar and let sit for a couple of minutes to curdle. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk together the oil and sugar. Add the milk mixture and whisk until good and foamy; add the extracts and mix till fully incorporated.

Sift in the dry ingredients (depending on your sifting apparatus, you may not be able to sift the cayenne. Just dump that in). Stir until no lump remain. Divide up into your tin and pop in the oven for 18 - 22 minutes. Remove and let cool in tin a few minutes, then take 'em out and let them cool fully on a rack.

Frosting

1/4 c room temp Earth Balance
1/4 c room temp cream cheese alternative (I use tofutti because it's the only one I've ever seen)
2 c icing sugar
2 tbsp non dairy milk or creamer (today I used french vanilla Silk creamer)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla

Beat the cream cheese and Earth Balance together until light n fluffy. Add half the sugar and half the milk. Beat until well combined, then add the other half of the sugar and milk, along with the cinnamon and vanilla. Beat until you're tired of doing so and it looks spreadable and stuff.

Taken with a real camera. On a chair.

Magic Mushroom Cupcakes - Based on VCTOTW vanilla cupcakes

1 c non dairy milk
1 tsp cider vinegar
3/4 c sugar
1/3 c canola oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp butter flavour
1 1/4 c flour
2 tbsp cornstarch
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

What's that magic number? Oh yeah, 350. Preheat. Line tin mini tin.

Mix milk and vinegar and wait a few. Then whisk that with sugar, canola, flavourings. Sift in dry ingredients.

Put 1 tbsp of white mix in each cup. When that's done, add 1 tsp strawberry flavour and enough red food gel to make it, well, red. Put 1 tbsp of that on top. There may be some left over. Sorry.

Bake for 12 - 15 minutes. Remove and cool before frosting.

Frosting - same as the one on the other cupcakes, just with different flavouring

1/4 room temp Earth Balance
1/4 c room temp Cream Cheese
2 c icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp strawberry flavouring
2 tbsp milk or creamer

Beat the butter & cream cheese. Add in 1 c of sugar and 1 tbsp of creamer. Beat in. Add in the rest of both of those plus the flavouring. Beat until everything is smooth and awesome. I took out a few tablespoons of white and set it aside to do the dots, then used gel colouring to make the rest red. You can do whatever you like.

We're so cute!

What, you may ask, was Dash doing while I was baking / frosting? Why, a picture speaks 1000 words, so let me show you.

Stolen cereal from the cupboard! Wonky fish eye look because of wide angle lens! Yay!

Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

My heart is full of love for cupcakes.

I can't make enough cupcakes. The next major holiday is Easter, that means Spring cupcakes like Carrot Cake and Lemon Meringue. We'll discuss the challenges of vegan meringue at some point. Also, Valentine's Day is soon. Mexican Snickerdoodle cupcakes? Chocolate Strawberry cupcakes? Plain vanilla cupcakes with red buttercream? Making some of my own flavours is the focus of Cupcake Challenge 2.0. Recreating well known non-vegan faves and making up some new combos!

At any rate, today it's crappy and dreary out there, so I thought something summery and uplifting would be the ticket - pink lemonade cupcakes!

Like the cupcakes of your dreams. If you have Dr Seuss dreams.

Cupcakes - More or less based on VCTOTW Margarita Cupcakes
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon (my lemon was juicy, so this turned out to be 1/4 c + 2 tbsp juice)
1 c milk
1/4 c canola oil
3/4 c sugar
2 tsp lemon extract
1/2 tsp raspberry extract
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/3c flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 350; line a cupcake pan.
Whisk everything from the zest through to the vanilla extract together until well combined. Sift in the dry ingredients and mix well until perfectly combined. Add some colour if you want; I used fuchsia food colouring gel because the icing is bright yellow, but you can do what you want!
Bake for 20 - 22 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for a few minutes in the pan before removing the cupcakes to a rack to finish cooling.

Icing
1/2 c margarine
1/4 c shortening
3 1/2 c icing sugar
3 tbsp lemon juice
zest of 1 lemon
1 tsp lemon extract
yellow food colouring gel

Cream the marg and shortening together till fluffy. Add the sugar in 3 increments, alternating with a tbsp of the juice. Add the zest and the colouring and beat until smooth and delicious. Ice those bitches!

One last picture because they're so pretty.

Holiday Cupcakes & Pigwidgeon Ornament

Made some Gingerbread Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese icing and some Red Velvet with plain cream cheese icing.

My mom gave us this owl ornament for the tree. We call it Pigwidgeon. <3 Not food related, but adorable.

Feelin' Like Baking

Are you getting sick of cupcakes yet? No, me neither.

Chocolate Cupcakes with 'Abombinaball' icing. If you remember from my last batch of cupcakes, which were created to taste like the Lush 'Abombinaball' bath bomb, the icing was a melty runny sticky disaster. It tasted good, though. I figured a good vehicle for minty vanilla frosting would be plain ol chocolate cupcakes.

I also had a complaint with icing that is half margarine and half shortening, as you will see in an upcoming post about Snickerdoodle cupcakes. I hate the mouthfeel of shortening. But I like the consistency it gives to frosting. So while I was uncompromising with the icing for the Snickerdoodle cupcakes (all margarine, all the time!) for these I decided to go with 3/4 c margarine and 1/4 c shortening. The result is better, though still not perfect. It's definitely a better frosting to work with, that's indisputable, but I can still feel the shortening. Maybe I just need to get over it. Anyhoo, recipe.

From Isa & Terry's VCTOTW

Cupcakes

1 c 'milk'
1 tsp apple cider vinegar 
3/4 c granulated sugar 
1/3 c canola oil 
1 tsp vanilla extract 
1/2 tsp almond extract, chocolate extract, or more vanilla extract (I used Chocolate extract)
1 c flour 
1/3 c cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking soda 
1/2 tsp baking powder 
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 350F and line your cupcake pan with fun liners.
Mix the milk and vinegar together and set aside to curdle. Beat the sugar and oil together, then add the milk mixture and the extracts and beat until frothy, a couple of minutes. Sift in  the dry ingredients and mix until no lumps remain. 
Divvy up amongst the cups and bake for 18 - 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes before putting the cupcakes on a rack to cool the rest of the way.


Frosting (based on vegan fluffy buttercream also from VCTOTW)

3/4 c Eartch Balance, room temp
1/4 c shortening, room temp
3 1/2 c icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp mint extract
1/2 tsp butter flavour
3 tbsp 'milk'


Beat the margarine and shortening together until fluffy. Add about half of the icing sugar and beat until well incorporated. Add a tbsp or two of milk and the rest of the sugar and beat well; add the extracts and beat to combine. If the icing is too stiff, add the rest of the milk. This is a LOT of frosting, so pipe very generous swirls onto the cupcakes.


Three Frosting Designs

Swirly swirls, mountain of frosting, lovely rose

Abombinaball Cupcakes

Holy crap. Cupcake Challenge 1.0 is turning out remarkably well.

Today's project was Abombinaball cupcakes. Abombinaball has a remarkable vanilla mint scent which I thought would lend itself well to cupcakeification. I was right.

I'm not sure about the colour combo. Abombinaball has some gold and white and blue, so I made the cupcake blue and the frosting orange. I think if there were to be a round 2 I would do white frosting (if possible... I'll get to that in a second) and blue and yellow sugar sprinkles.

Frosting. The frosting is tasty, but I actually wanted something with a marshmallow consistency, not the soft consistency I got. I use Ricemellow Cream, which is a light gold colour (it's made with brown rice syrup, what did I expect...) and this is the first time I've ever used it so I had no idea what to expect. I think next time I'll either have to use some sort of agar frosting or else go with a plain cream cheese or butter cream frosting. The taste was phenomenal though.

Recipe? Sure.

Adapted from Isa's Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pan. 

Mix together
1 c unsweetened almond (or soy) milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Whisk together
1/3 c canola oil
3/4 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp artificial butter flavouring
2 tsp mint extract (I have the mint/peppermint combo extract)
Then add in the milk mixture and whisk till frothy (at this point I added somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 drops of blue food colouring. Optional for you, of course)

Sift in
1 1/4 c flour
2 tbsp cornstarch
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Mix up well, you don't want clumps, and then divide among the cups.  Bake for 20 - 22 minutes, remove from oven, cool for 5 minutes then remove to a wire rack and cool the rest of the way.

Frosting
Beat together
1/2 tofutti cream cheese
1 c Ricemellow Creme

Sift in gradually until smooth
3/4 c icing sugar

Add
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp butter flavour
1/2 tsp orange extract
1/4 tsp mint extract
some gel colouring if you want

It was quite liquid at this point for me, so I popped it in the fridge for half an hour. This was an unsuccessful ploy. This frosting is really frigging messy and I am unlikely to bother using it again. Thank god it's tasty.

Quite disastrous.

Cupcake Challenge 1.0!

First, here's a Crimson Velveteen cupcake I made from VCTOTW for a staff meeting the other day.

Pretty wrappers!

Cheerio in the background!

They were a hit. I need to pick up some chocolate extract next time I'm at Golda's, since according to the recipe the flavour will be elevated to supreme deliciousness with it, but I forgot last time I was there so just added a little more vanilla and almond instead. I frosted regular cupcake type swirls and then decided to branch out to roses with my trusty 1m frosting tip. Seriously, that thing has been the best $1.99 (if it was even that much!) purchase ever. I think I just keep making cupcakes so I can use it.

Speaking of just making cupcakes. If you don't know, I work for a lovely soap company called Lush which makes really delightful bath, body, hair and skin things for the masses. Every year at Christmas they come out with a huge collection of wonderful limited edition treats, mostly bath stuff, though for the past couple of years they've done lip tints, a facial cleanser, and a lip scrub as well. Anyhoo, I thought I'd have a good time and turn some of these superb items into cupcakes.

Abombinaball: Super cute abominable snowman shaped bomb which smells of vanilla and mint. I'm in love with this guy. I'm thinking either a vanilla bean cupcake with mint buttercream frosting or else just trying to make both components amazingly vanilla minty. I'll be tinting the icing light blue, natch. Perhaps some nice blue and gold sugar crystals on the edge? I'll be thinking about how to make this a boozy frosting too. That would be double bonus points.

Gingerbread House: exactly what it sounds like. I could even make it look identical to the bubble bar really easily! How adorable would that be.

Snow Fairy:If I can find gelatin-free swedish berries (which, I'm pretty sure actually do exist?) this sweet fragrance would make some lovely, yummy cupcakes. Not to mention the fact that they'd be beautiful and hot pink. Double whammy of awesome.

There are a lot of citrus scented things out this Christmas, too, and I will contemplate them but I'm not a super huge fan of orange flavour cupcakes. If only there were more lemon things! Darn it all.

Halloween Cupcakes!

I would say this post is going to be boring, but of course nothing with cupcakes can ever be boring.

I bought some fun eyeball cupcake liners and just made some plain mini vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting that I tinted orange with gel food colouring. This is also the first time I've use the gel food colouring and let me tell you, what a delightful treat! The colour is super pure so you need only a tiny bit to get vibrant frosting. It's much less messy than those darn little elf hat topped liquid colours too.

Unfortunately, my frosting wasn't soft enough for the sprinkles to stick, so there are 5 sprinkles on 1 cupcake and approximately a million sprinkles on the kitchen table.

Spoooooky!

Creeeeeepy!

Terrifyingly adorable!

In retrospect, it would have been funny to hold two cupcakes with the big eyes showing so they look like they were looking at you with their creepy eyes. Oh well. Next year. Happy late Halloween!

I got a new frosting tip!

Just wanted to share the joy that is the 1M frosting tip. It's been a long time coming, and I've been making do with other tips, which are fine, but don't make the cupcake look nearly as glamorous as the ones in the magazines.

Example.

Vanilla with Vanilla buttercream.

Chocolate with Chocolate buttercream

See how the chocolate one has more defined ridges and just looks a bit fancier somehow? Sadly I don't have pictorial evidence of using the 1A tip to do the chocolate frosting, but it's just a plain smooth tip and makes it look like cartoon dog poo on a cupcake. I mean, we know it's chocolate and all, but this is definitely preferable. So, if you don't have one, go get the 1M tip. It's pretty magical. Also, be prepared for so many more cupcakes. I'm planning on some good Christmas (LUSH!) themed ones.

It's the REAL Thanksgiving, y'all!

Starting off right - with a picture of dinner.

Because I'm a big idiot I forgot to book any time off for Thanksgiving this weekend. Both sides of the the family did the dinner thing on Sunday, so with no prospect of a big food coma inducing dinner on the horizon, I took those reins into my own hands and decided to make a fairly traditional Thanksgiving meal for just the three of us.

Pre icing

Menu
Seitan Turkey
Mushroom Gravy
Roasted Acorn Squash
Mashed Potatoes
Beets
Wax Beans
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Cinnamon Icing

The roast was pretty good. I had some anger issues when I was making it because my dough hook was being a crappy old son of a bitch, so I had to do the first ten minutes of kneading by hand. These hands are not made for manual labour, people. That was hard work. Ian's criticism is that it won't make him tired and gassy - for shame.

For the gravy, I followed the recipe I posted last week, except that I added some dried porcinis. I soaked them in hot water (one cup) for 45 minutes first and then used the mushroom water in place of one cup of the broth.

Pretty Shallots

I roasted the squash with the turkey for the last hour and a half because the oven temp was lower than I would do squash by itself. It turned out perfectly, and I just added salt and pepper to serve it.

Mashed potatoes... well if you don't know how to make mashed potatoes. I don't know what to say. I used Earth Balance and veg stock and a spoonful of dijon in mine; I also boiled them with 4 cloves of garlic. Pretty typical mashed potatoes, yes?

I like beets pretty simply done; roasted in a tin foil package with a couple tablespoons of water, some salt and pepper and a drizzle of oil for an hour and a bit (425F or so). Then I peel them, cut them into chunks, drizzle with olive oil and good balsamic and then salt and pepper to taste.

The cupcakes were dreamy. For serious. So good. Make them now and always. That's an order.

Fun Artsy Icing Squiggles

Lesson time: don't bother buying these pretty tulip cupcake papers. They're $5.50 for only 15 wrappers. They're so thin the oil is really evident. And really, they're just silly. So yeah.

Beginning of Vegan Mofo 2011

Hi! Welcome to Vegan Mofo 2011!

I'm hoping not to crap out early like I did last year. I had wanted to be doing a cookbook challenge simultaneously with Mofo but I don't think that's super realistic right now so I'll just concentrate on doing whatever I can and keeping up with the posting.

I must go make some dinner now... about which I will likely post on the morrow.

Here's to an Amazing Mofo 2011!

Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting - VCTOTW