Cupcakes!

Hey all!
I'm Jen.
I'm an avid vegan cook and have become fed-up of listing every single ingredient when people ask 'what do you eat?'...as they often do. So i've made this blog as an attempt at a response :P

So let's dive right in with today's addition; Vegan Cupcakes!

There are some vital ingredients needed for vegan cupcakes, namely non-dairy margarine, such as Pure or Vitalite, and some kind of egg replacer. In this case, I used a commercial egg replacer, which is a strange white powder that forms a sticky goo when mixed with water. But you can also use mashed banana (half a medium banana = 1 egg), or even a relatively flavourless oil, like sunflower or vegetable oil, but you'll find the cupcakes are a little more crumbly.

Today, I made two varieties; Chocolate-Orange, and Vanilla with an apricot jam filling.

To make anything chocolate flavoured extra rich, I always add pure chocolate extract as well as the cocoa. This can be hard to find, and pretty expensive, but it's worth it if you can your hands on it.

I topped the Chocolate orange ones with chocolate-orange buttercream (non-dairy margarine cream?) icing, then dipped them in grated chocolate. mmmmm...

 

For the grated chocolate, I used both 'milk' and white varieties of non-dairy chocolate by Organica. It's organic and fairtrade, as well as rich and creamy...and otherwise delicious!

 

For the Vanilla-Apricot cupcakes, I put a layer of vanilla cupcake batter in a case case, put a teaspoon of apricot jam in the middle, then added another layer of cupcake batter. I topped them with a vanilla 'buttercream' icing, and covered them in cute little star-shaped sprinkles.

 

P.s. Never underestimate the power of doilies. Laying one on a plate before adding the cupcakes makes them look approximately 200% more delicious :P

Just let me know if you want any recipes or anything :)

Jen x