The Vegan Cupcake

June 22nd, 2010 § 39 Comments

When I first lost 135lbs, I was worried that I had bid adieu to sweets. That keeping the weight off would mean keeping the cupcakes at arms length and baked goods in a strictly business relationship. Well that just wouldn’t do.

I began eating a cupcake a day. One delicious cakey round swirled and twirled with sugary sweet frosting. I know, not the natural next step in weight maintenance. But for me it was. Because the act of delighting in one, just one, luscious bit of decadence each and every day taught me so much more than the entire flavor showcase at my favorite Boston bakeries. I learned that life, as I want to live it, will be full of sugar. And butter. And flour. And chocolate. Plenty of chocolate. And overcoming that tremendous fear that each and every morsel that passed my lips would mean a return to morbid obesity was almost as hard as losing it in the first place.

Saved by the cupcake.

Now, years later, I’ve dropped the cupcake a day. But I could resume. Perhaps I should. I suppose just knowing that I can is enough. So I wait, patiently, for those perfectly domed cakes, the best of the best baked goods to bite into. I pass on Pillsbury, deny Duncan Hines, and generally overlook Oreos. Because I just don’t love them like I love the humble homebaked brownie, cake, and cookie. Special occasions in and of themselves.

99 times out of 100 I’m going to urge you to eat a dessert that contains nothing short of butter, sugar, flour, and eggs. To sit and sloooowly savor the moist bite of sour cream fudge cake, taking extra care to swipe a finger through the rich velvet layer of buttercream and lick it clean. To promise me that every last crumb ends up on your tongue.

Because that, my darling, is satisfaction of body and soul. Chocolate and butter as they were meant to be: married and at home in your belly.

But sometimes, just sometimes, that one time out of one hundred, I stumble upon a recipe that totes the vegan title and I get curious. How does it taste? Is the flavor as lacking as the butter and eggs?

Not this time.

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes

(recipe from the NYTimes, an adaptation stemming from “Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World” by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero)

(makes 12)

  • 1 cup nondairy milk (soy, rice, almond, hemp)
  • 1 teaspoon vinegar
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/3 cup cocoa powder
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 350°. In a small bowl, combine the milk and vinegar. Set aside for a few minutes.

I used almond milk by Almond Breeze.

In another bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

In a large bowl, combine the sugar, canola oil, vanilla, and the milk mixture. Mix well.

Stir in the dry ingredients. Mixture will be very wet and a thin consistency.

Line a standard muffin tray with paper liners and divide the batter evenly among them.

Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of one cupcake comes out clean. Set to cool on a wire rack.

Top with your favorite frosting. Might I suggest a little decadence here? Since these cupcakes are so low calorie and light, I’d opt for a luscious chocolate ganache like the one I’ve shown above. Or peanut butter buttercream. Just make it rich.

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