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!

Cookies!

Just to change it up from the every day goodness of cupcakes, today I bring you the most bestest chocolate chip cookie recipe I have ever tried (vegan or otherwise). No crazy ingredients, just a beautiful harmony of basics which create the most mouth wateringly yummy cookies EVER. No, don't argue. When I say ever, I mean it.

From Sweet Tooth

2 c flour
1 c sugar (she uses turbinado; I have used turbinado, regular granulated, and a mix of both. Personally, I prefer the mix of 50/50 because you get the crunch of the turbinado, but they hold together much better!)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 c chocolate chips / chunks
2/3 c canola oil
1/4 c milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp molasses

Preheat to 350. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment.

Sift / whisk together the dry ingredients, then stir in the chocolate and make a well. Whisk together the wet ingredients, then pour into dry ingredients and stir until combined. Use your hands to make 16 - 20 cookie dough balls, and flatten them a bit on the sheet. Bake for 8 - 10 minutes. Cool on the sheet for 5 or 10 minutes before removing to a rack to cool the rest of the way.

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!

Banana Caramel Cupcakes

Over ripe bananas. What do you do? Muffins? Loaf? Pancakes?

Naturally, my answer is CUPCAKES. Naturally.

I made the cupcake just plain banana. Nothing fancy. I bet chocolate chips would be awesome (1/2 c or so?). Next time I might throw in 1/2 tsp or maybe a full tsp of cinnamon too.


Makes 12 cupcakes
1 c mashed over ripe bananas
1/3 c oil
1/4 c 'milk'
2/3 c sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat your oven to 350; line a muffin pan with cupcake papers.

Mix the banana, oil, milk and sugar, beating well with a fork. Stir in the vanilla.

Sift in the dry ingredients. Mix with the fork, but be careful not to over-beat. No one likes tough cupcakes. Divide into liners, filling about 2/3 full. Bake for 20 - 22 minutes, remove from oven, and let cool in the pan for a couple of minutes before removing to a rack to cool the rest of the way.

Caramel Sauce
The sauce crystallized which is really annoying. It tastes fine; I also added about a tablespoon of rum so that we would kind of get a bananas foster effect to the finished cupcake. I used almond milk instead of soy cream or mimiccreme, so maybe that's the problem; I'll try with a cream next time and see how it does.

Frosting
1/2 c room temperature Earth Balance
1/4 c + 2 tbsp caramel sauce
2 c icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp butter flavour
More caramel sauce
A little cinnamon

Beat the Earth Balance until light and fluffy. Add the caramel sauce and beat until well incorporated. Add the sugar in two batches, adding a bit of milk in between if it gets too stiff. Add the extracts, beat in, then frost your cupcakes.

Drizzle the caramel over the cupcakes; dust with a little cinnamon. Eat!

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.

Delicious Lentils.

It's really easy to fall into a trap where as a vegetarian you end up eating soy products an awful lot. December was definitely one of those months and whether or not the whole cancer thing is true, it's always better to have a more diverse group of foods in your diet rather than letting things get stagnant and eating the same thing day in, day out. Back to the bean!

Or legume. We had Isa Chandra's Upside Down Lentil Shepherd's Pie for dinner tonight and it was scrumdiddlyumptious. Served over dijon mashed potatoes and with a glass of merlot, you can't go wrong! I ended up using about half red lentils and half green because I was too lazy to find du Puy lentils the other day - I would have had to go downtown *gasp* and I just didn't feel like it. Also, do try to find the Worcestershire sauce - it definitely adds a little sumthin sumthin. I've made it without, as well, so I'm not just saying stuff.

Oh, yeah, and I added corn instead of peas because it's what I had.

Not Cupcakes

The last couple of times I've made cupcakes I've been all "Yeah! Gotta make cupcakes!" and then made them and not actually wanted to eat any, so they've been donated to the worthy cause of the stomachs of the people with whom I work. I decided it was time to talk about something else then, too.

I love multi coloured quinoa. It's the perfect side to this orange tofu and braised baby bok choy.

For the bok choy, heat a little olive oil (mediumish heat) in a wide shallow pan, add some well cleaned bok choy and a couple of cloves of garlic, crushed. Give it a stir, add a splash of water, and cover and let steam until crispy and bright green, just a few minutes.