Sunday 24 July 2011

The Best Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate 'Buttercream' Icing

On Friday night I was lazily surfing the web, the Post Punk Kitchen site in particular, and I came across this recipe for dairy free chocolate mousse cupcakes. I had cooked with tofu for the first time last Sunday when I made another of PPK's recipes, the moussaka with pine nut cream and this recipe for chocolate cupcakes gave me something to so with the left over tofu. Despite being really tired on Friday night I couldn't get these out of my head and decided to make them. I am SO glad I did. 

I didn't have 340g (12oz) of tofu left, I only had 234g (8.5oz) so I reduced the recipe by a third. It made more than enough icing and I had some left over although I didn't decorate them as the recipe suggested. I have adapted the recipe slightly.

For the icing:
235g dark chocolate, melted
235g silken tofu (I used this one it is the soft version and it worked fine!)
60ml plain soy milk (hint 60ml = 60g)
2 tablespoons/30ml agave syrup or maple syrup
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon cornflour (if needed to thicken)
4 tablespoons icing sugar

Method - Icing
1. Crumble the tofu into a blender. Add the soy milk, agave, icing sugar and vanilla extract. Puree until completely smooth. Set aside.

2. Either using a bain marie or in the microwave (in 30 second blasts) melt the dark chocolate. Once melted, let cool for 5 more minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Add the chocolate to the tofu and blend until well combined, use the spatula to scrape down the sides of the blender every so often.

4. Let the icing cool in the fridge for about an hour.


For the cupcakes:
240ml soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
160g granulated sugar
63ml cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract, chocolate extract, or more vanilla extract
125g plain flour
30g cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Method (cupcakes)

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and line a muffin pan with paper liners.

2. Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar in a large bowl, and set aside for a few minutes to curdle. Add the sugar, oil, vanilla extract, and other extract, if using, to the soy milk mixture and beat until foamy.

 

3. Sift in the dry ingredients, flour, cocoa, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt into the wet ingredients and whisk together. 

 4. Lightly spray the liners with cooking spray and pour batter into liners, filling 3/4 of the way. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.
 5. Assemble! Either you can do the classic big swirls of icing or as I did make butterfly cakes by cutting out the top and cutting it in half and filling the hole with icing.

These are the best vegan cupcakes I have ever tasted but they're pretty amazing when compared to non-vegan ones too. The sponge is dense and chocolatey, the icing, I adapted by adding cornflour to thicken it up as I was concerned it would be runny because of the comments, and then some icing sugar to sweeten it so that it is like butter icing. I initially added too much cornflour and no icing sugar and although the icing looked right, it didn't quite taste right. Once I watered it down a bit and added the icing sugar it became the right consistency and the sweetness of the sugar brought out the chocolatey taste. 


I made twelve but there are only two left now!

As for our dairy free experiment this week we broke it yesterday with an ice cream (which was delicious) not really thinking that it had made that much difference to Mr VST. I had noticed that I was much less bunged up. Last night I had a sore throat and a headache, not sure if these were dairy related but I feel better today. Anyway, Mr VST, woke up all bunged up today so it seems as though it must be having some impact. He has decided to continue with the oat milk instead of dairy and only really eating dairy in baking although he won't have to if I keep making batches of these!

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