Vegan Cupcakes, test #1… set the mood: Summerlong – Emm Gryner

Earlier this week my future partner in business picked up “Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World” for me, insisting that I be the cupcake master once we open our bakery. Having already claimed the Pie Master title for herself, I felt it was only fair to accept the challenge.

And since the authors say that no one wants to read about your day at work, they actually want pictures of cupcakes, I thought “fuck it, let them have cupcakes.”

Since I can’t actually follow a recipe without augmenting it somewhat, it is no surprise that my first batch turned out badly.

Lacking the ingredients to make most of the more interesting recipes, I went for the Banana Split Cupcakes. I used spelt flour instead of wheat, since spelt is nice on tummies and the only other option was garbanzo (blech!). There is a little part of the recipe that calls for pineapple preserves, and since I’m not much of a preserve girl, I skipped this part and replaced part of the oil with pineapple-apple sauce. I threw in some chocolate chips cause I had some.

As I waited for them to bake, I realised that I’d forgotten a key ingredient: sugar.

I was a bit concerned. Not much since I’ve cut most forms of sugar from my diet, so I usually have to half what most recipes call for.

They tasted pretty good when they came out, but they needed more soymilk (probably because of the spelt), so they were more muffiny than cupcake-like.

The icing portion was a whole different set of problems.

I’m not very good with vegan icing. Anything that doesn’t involve mixing sugar with cocoa and margarine is confusing to me. I decided to pep the muffincakes up with the peanutbutter icing… BUT I only use natural, and although I skim the oil off the top, the consistency is very runny. Adding to that, the tofu I had was regular firm stuff, not silken firm, so it didn’t blend well at all and it ended up rather runny.

SO, I hollowed out the cakes, filled them with the peanut goo, put their tops back on and slathered them with vegan chocolate ganache and crushed peanuts.

After chilling them in the freezer during the busy lunch-rush, my coworkers dug in to my sugarless cupcakes. I felt they were a little dry, but they thought the cupcakes were fabulous. The only comment was: Next time, put in more filling.