Sunday 6 May 2012

Vegan chocolate cupcakes

Another birthday party-related post... I did quite a lot of baking last weekend!
One of my best friends is vegan and I wanted to make sure there would be cakes at my party that she could eat. I'm relatively new to vegan cooking - because my friend is relatively new to veganism - and when I mentioned my idea for vegan cakes to someone who shall remain nameless (!) she said she imagined they would be tasteless and horrible. So I set out to prove her wrong!

I googled 'vegan cakes' as I really didn't know where to start and found this recipe, though I decided to halve the quantities. The recipe was for a large cake - even though the picture shows cupcakes - and I decided to make it into cupcakes. It was pretty easy to make:

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, bicarb of soda and salt. Then add sugar.

 

Add vegetable oil, water and vanilla flavouring. And that's it!

Pour into cake cases and bake....


The recipe didn't include any frosting (scandalous!) but that too is pretty easy to make. I had some vegan margarine from a brand named Pure in the fridge from when I did a previous vegan bake for the same friend (which I haven't blogged about yet, but will) and all I did was mix that with some icing sugar and cocoa powder to make dairy-free buttercream.


I piped that on top of the cakes, then for the finishing touch made a green shoe cake topper. I used a small shoe cutter and rolled green fondant (which is vegan, I checked!) and once it had hardened, stood one on top of each cupcake. I did a similar topper but in pink for a different kind of cupcake I had made, so I was able to tell my friend that the ones with the green shoe signified they were vegan :-)


I wasn't sure how it would turn out since it used neither eggs nor butter but the end result was a really lovely moist chocolate cake. Several non-vegans ate these and declared them delicious and the doubter I mentioned at the start of this post had to eat her words - as she ate a cupcake!

10 comments:

  1. Well done on the vegan cupcakes! I'm sorry I didn't get to try one as I was too full of cake but they definitely looked good and I heard nothing but praise for them at your party.

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    1. There were too many different types of cake, weren't there?! I didn't even get round to trying the White Russian cupcakes until about four days after the party, by which point I'm sure they were past their best!

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  2. Great job caroline! The shoe on top is too cute :D

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    1. Thanks - I thought it was a good way to show which of the cakes were vegan!

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  3. Good job - I did some dairy free baking this weekend but have yet to try vegan! They look good!

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    1. Thanks - I was pleased they went down well with non-vegans as well!

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  4. Well done Caroline! Looks really yummy & lovely with the cute shoe toppers! :)

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    1. Thank you - I wanted an easy way to identify what was vegan that also went with the shoe theme!

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  5. I notice I havn't commented on these, how did this happen? Possibly the best cupcake I have ever eaten (even before veganism).

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    1. You obviously haven't had my Oreo cupcakes then! No, actually, these really were great.

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