Party Time Vegan Cupcakes

YOU GUYS. These cupcakes are so, so good. I used this cupcake recipe and this frosting recipe. (Both from the Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World cookbook.) And I am never going back to buying store-bought frosting. And I am never going to stop licking frosting off of spoons. I brought these to a party and everyone got super blissful expressions on their faces as they ate them. I know because I stood in the corner behind the food table and creepily spied on people, okay?

Cupcake Ingredients:

• 1 cup soy milk
• 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar (I just used white vinegar)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, chocolate extract, or more vanilla extract (I used almond extract and it really did add a nice hint of almondy flavor. Definitely worth it.)
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder, Dutch-processed or regular
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

 First off, add the vinegar to the soymilk in a bowl until it curdles. I KNOW, this is gross. Don't even worry about it.

I too was skeptical of a recipe that starts out with curdled soy milk, but seriously, these cupcakes are amazing.

Then stir in the sugar, oil, and assorted extracts. Meanwhile sift together the dry ingredients in another bowl and then add them to the wet ingredients and stir until all the big lumps are gone. Pour the delicious batter into 12 cupcake cups and bake for 18-20 minutes. Lick some batter off your finger.


Frosting ingredients:

• 1/2 cup nonhydrogenated shortening (This is the first time I've ever bought shortening! It made awesome frosting so that's cool)
• 1/2 cup nonhydrogenated margarine
• 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup plain soy milk or soy creamer
• Optional: some crushed-up cookies to make cookies n cream frosting! I used the Meijer store brand of chocolate Teddy Grahams. They are Dinosaur Grahams which is obviously way better.

 Cream together the shortening and the margarine until they're blended. Then add the powdered sugar and beat it for 3 minutes. Add the vanilla and soy milk and keep beating for 7 minutes. (Says the recipe. I gave up earlier because I don't have a mixer and my arm hurt.) Add crushed cookies at the end if you want. And you DO.

Mmm, frosting.

Cookies n cream frosting! This is like 30 dino grahams mashed up in here.

Then after the cupcakes cool, frost them! The frosting recipe makes enough for probably 50 cupcakes. So if you don't make that many cupcakes, you'll have plenty of delicious frosting, which you can put on dino grahams, pretzels, or fingers.

The worst part about this recipe is that it only makes 12 :(