Cupcakes to me mean celebration. I love them. I love that they are small and can be individually decorated. So I’m always making cupcakes. In fact when someone shares something positive in one of my classes, I’ll often respond with ‘Cupcakes for all.’

When we bought our house outside of New York City, a client told me that she had a dream that she was at our house celebrating and we were all having cupcakes. Once we moved in, I had a party and invited clients and students to come celebrate our new home, with cupcakes.

One of those students found a Vegan Cupcake cookbook and sent it to me as a gift. It is a book full of 75 vegan cupcake making options and they are all delicious.

I wanted to share with you today one of the basic recipes for vegan chocolate cupcakes, with vegan chocolate ‘buttercream’ frosting from:

Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World: 75 Dairy-Free Recipes for Cupcakes that Rule by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero

I made a few substitutions which I’ve noted. Everyone loved these! Now if only ‘vegan’ meant calorie free too!

Ingredients:

• 1 Cup of Soy Milk (I substituted 1 Cup of Almond Milk)
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar (I substituted 3/4 cup of pure maple syrup)
• 1/3 cup canola oil ( I substituted 2 Tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons of unsweetened applesauce)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, chocolate extract, or more vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour (I substituted 1 cup Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour)
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder, dutch-processed or regular
• 3/4 tsp baking soad
• 1/2 tsp baking powder(I use Hain Sodium and Gluten free baking powder)
• 1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line muffin pan with paper liners. I used unbleached paper liners.
2. Whisk together they milk and vinegar in measuring cup and set aside for a few minutes to curdle. Pour milk mixture into a large bowl for mixing (I used my food processor so I poured it into my food processor bowl.) Add the sugar, oil, vanilla extract and the other extract to the milk mixture and beat until foamy.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Separate into two batches and add to wet ingredients until smooth.
4. Pour into liners filling 3/4 of the way full
5. Bake for 18-20 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
6. Cool on a cooling rack completely.

Frosting

• 1/4 cup margarine (I use vegan, non GMO margarine)
• 1/4 cup shortening (I used Coconut Oil)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted if there are clumps
• 2/12 cups powdered sugar, sifted
• 3 tablespoons soy milk (I used almond milk)
• 1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions
Cream together the margarine and the shortening until well combined. Add the cocoa powder and incorporate well. Add the confectioners sugar in about 1/2 cup batches and beat well, adding a little splash of soy milk (almond milk) after each addition. When all ingredients have been well incorporated add the vanilla and beat until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes with a hand mixer, 7 minutes if mixing with a fork  – I used the food processor and it worked fine.) Frost the cupcakes after they have cooled.