Maple Bacon, Lavender Honey, and Orange Zested with Chocolate Ganache Cupcakes

Hi Everyone!

It's been forever since I've posted something, or even been on here. I now have 60 followers which is mind blowing to me. Thanks for all sticking around!

Although these aren't all vegan, they can easily be made vegan with fakin bacon and no honey. The bases of these are still vegan! I was lucky enough to find an entire bouquet of fresh lavender at Whole Foods to make these, so now I have a lot of extra buds to dry out for future baking.
These altogether took me about 4.5 hours to make, so only bake these when you have some time! Enjoy!

Here are the recipes:

Maple Bacon Cupcakes:

1/2 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
2/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup of bacon grease (yes, seriously)

Once it's all blended, put evenly distribute the batter into the baking cups. Put a few pieces of bacon in the middle of each cupcake.

Brown Sugar Bacon:

Lay bacon out on a baking pan and broil on high for 5 minutes. Take it out, generously pile brown sugar on each piece and broil for another 5 minutes. Watch it carefully so the brown sugar doesn't burn the bacon and fill your kitchen with smoke. Oops.

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes
Take out, set to cool.

Maple Butter cream:

1/2 cup earth balance
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup maple syrup

Use a piping bag to put the frosting on the cupcakes, and garnish each one with a piece of maple bacon.


Lavender Honey Cupcakes:

1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup lavender simple syrup
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix all ingredients together
Bake at 350 for 18 minutes, take out and set to cool.

Lavender Simple Syrup:

1 cup water
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup fresh or dried lavender buds

Put the water and sugar together in a pot on high for 5 minutes. Add the lavender buds and stir together. Keep it on simmer for 10 minutes but watch it carefully because if it gets too hot it will start to turn into lavender candy. Do not let it boil!

Let the syrup cool in the refrigerator. Once it's cooled put the syrup in a food processor so the buds will mix with the syrup. (You can also use this syrup for tea!)

Honey Butter Cream:

1/2 cup earth balance
1/2 cup shortening
3 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup honey

I frosted the cupcakes with a knife instead of piping it only because it was really hot in my kitchen and my frosting wouldn't stay stiff. It ended up working out just fine anyways. Garnish each cupcake with a lavender bud!

Orange Zested Cupcakes:

1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon orange zest

Orange Chocolate Ganache:

1/2 fresh squeezed orange juice
1 table spoon orange zest
2 1/2 cups semisweet vegan chocolate chips

Over low to medium heat, combine the soy milk and the chocolate chips in a sauce pan and keep mixing it until they mix together.

Once this is cooled off a bit (but still melty) put about a teaspoon of this over each cupcake and spread it around until it covers most, or all of the top.

I tried to make candied orange peels to garnish for the tops of these, but it didn't turn out so well. I ended up following a recipe to make orange peel candy, and not candied orange peels which resulted in a pot of charred orange candy and a kitchen full of smoke. (the pot survived)

Happy Baking :)

Fall is here!

Fall is the best season for baking. I went apple picking twice last week and I've been baking and cooking pretty much every day since. My friend Jeremy is on tour from California and I baked him some apple cinnamon muffins this morning before he hit the road. Here's the recipe!:

Cinnamon Apple Muffins:

1 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tbsp cinnamon
1/3 cup chopped apples


I sprinkled cinnamon sugar on the top before I put them in the oven to bake. It leaves them with a thin glazed crust on the top.

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes
Take out, set to cool.

You can check out Jeremy's band and tour dates here:
http://www.myspace.com/toucheamore



Happy Baking! :)

Chocolate Orange, Ginger Lemon, PBJ and Cookies!

I was baking the other day and made my friend pose for a picture showing his awesome OG Black Flag shirt. I baked Chocolate Orange, Ginger Lemon, PBJ cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies. I can post all recipes except for the cookies because the recipe is my sisters that I'm not allowed to share, unfortunately. Here they are!:

Chocolate Orange:

1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup orange juice
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 tbsp orange zest
1/4 teaspoon salt

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes, take out and set to cool

Chocolate Ganache:

1 cup of vegan chocolate chips
1/2 cup soy milk

Over low to medium heat, combine the soy milk and the chocolate chips in a sauce pan and keep mixing it until they mix together.

Once this is cooled off a bit (but still melty) put about a teaspoon of this over each cupcake and spread it around until it covers most, or all of the top.


Ginger Lemon Cupcakes:


1/2 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tsp of ground ginger
zest from 1 lemon (squeeze some of the juice in too!)

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes. Take out, set to cool.

Ginger Lemon Butter cream Frosting:

1/2 cup earth balance
1/2 cup shortening
3 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup soy milk
1/2 tsp ground ginger
zest from 1 lemon

I also chopped up crystallized ginger and put it in the frosting, and then decorated each cupcake with a piece of the ginger, too.


As for the PBJ cupcakes, I've baked them a handful of times. The recipe should be in my blog at least twice already!

Thanks for reading and Happy Baking! :)

Happy New Year!

After about 3 months of barely updating my blog at all, I'm hitting the kitchen tonight to bake some goodies finally! You know it's been a long time since you've baked when you have to go to your own blog to look up your own recipe for the cupcakes you bake...haha absurd. But lucky for you, you will have two new cupcake recipes to bake up! Check back tomorrow to see what I have up my sleeve.

Happy Baking!

Edge Day

I made Xed up cupcakes for the Pre-Edge Day show this year. The whole weekend was awesome. These are just simple chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with vanilla butter cream frosting on top, and I mixed food coloring for the black X.

A day with the coolest people I know, and Nutella

Finally an update! I misplaced my memory card reader to upload pictures and I just found it today.
Anyways,
This was back on October 7th. I headed over to my Aunt and Uncles house for the day to bake my Uncles favorite baked goods for his birthday. We baked him a cake with pure Nutella frosting (amazing/disgusting idea, I know) and hazelnut cupcakes with Nutella frosting. Although Nutella isn't vegan, there is a vegan alternative that is called "Simple Soynut Butter" that you can use for this recipe. Over all, this day was spent with two of the coolest people I know listening to Black Flag, This is Boston Not L.A., and eating good food.

Here is the recipe:

Hazelnut Cupcakes:

1/2 cup soy milk
2 1/2 tsp hazelnut extract
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes. Take out, set to cool.

Hazelnut Chocolate Nutella Frosting:

1/2 cup earth balance
1/2 cup shortening
3 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup soy milk
1 tbsp hazelnut extract
1/3 cup vegan nutella

I would suggest chopping up hazelnuts and putting some on each cupcake

Happy Baking!

Updates

Hello Everyone!

Sorry about not updating recently. I moved into the city a few weeks ago and I'm still getting situated and everything. Hopefully I'll be baking in no time.

Other news: This weekend there was a hardcore fest in Boston that I went to. My roommate let a group of friends stay over and I recognized one of them as someone who reads my blog. His name is Kwame, and he's awesome. I was wicked excited to meet someone who regularly reads this. Unfortunately we were not able to bake up a storm together. Next time we run into each other I'm sure we will be to our necks in baked goods.


Hi Kwame!


Keep checking back,
Claire

Lavender Pear, Green Tea & Honey Dew, and Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes

These are Lavender Pear, Green Tea & Honey Dew, and Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes. My friend Klint came up with the idea of the Green Tea & Honey Dew cupcakes (thanks Klint!). When baking these I left the lavender cupcakes and the green tea cupcakes in the oven for a bit too long. If I didn't over bake them, they would've come out better. People seemed to like a lot anyways. I was afraid of the lavender cupcakes tasting too much like perfume. For the green tea cupcakes I didn't have matcha green tea powder, which would've helped with the flavor a lot. If you don't have a decent amount of time on your hands to bake these, I wouldn't recommend it. Other than that, these are interesting flavors that you don't hear of on an everyday basis, and they were fun to make. Here are the recipes:

Lavender Pear Cupcakes:

You need to get dried lavender flowers for this recipe. You can ususally find them at Whole Foods or any other natural organic grocery store. If you can't find them yourself, ask someone. You need 2 tbsp of lavender.

Once you have this, put the 2 tbsp in a bowl with 1 tbsp of sugar and 1/4 cup of water. Heat this up over the stove or in a microwave (I used the microwave) for a minute. This will bring all over the flavoring out of the flowers, and into the sugar water. Set this aside to cool.

Once cooled, strain out the flowers (a sifter works good for straining the flowers out). You can throw out the flowers, you just need the sugar water. Put this in a 1 cup measuring cup, put in some soy milk, and fill the rest of it with the syrup/juice from canned pears.

1 cup soy milk/lavender sugar water/pear juice
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons of vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
very finely sliced pears (canned)

Although you can't tell in the picture because I over baked these, I made the batter a light lavender color with food coloring.

Bake at 360 for 18-20 minutes. Take out, set to cool.

Pear Buttercream Frosting:

1/2 cup earth balance
1/2 cup shortening
3 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup pear juice/syrup from canned pears
2 tsp vanilla extract
take the pears from the can and cut them up very thin and small
about 1/4 cup of small thin chopped pears

I used a frosting knife to frost these, because the base in the frosting is juice and using a piping bag would've made a huge mess.
I put some purple food coloring in the frosting, and cut little slivers of fresh pear to garnish the tops of each cupcake.

Green Tea & Honey Dew Cupcakes:

These will be best with matcha green tea powder, but unforuntately I couldn't find any so I had to improvise. I had green tea bags, so I put 1 cup of soy milk in a bowl, and added 5 tea bags to the milk. I heated it up on the stove for about 3 minutes on low heat, and set it aside to cool. Before you throw out the teabags, make sure you squeeze the milk from each bag.

1 cup green tea soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons of vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

With matcha green tea powder, you wouldn't need to color the cupcake batter because it's a bright green color. Just using tea bags, it doesn't have much of a color at all so I also added green and brown food coloring to this (it should be more green than brown).

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes. Take out, set to cool.

Honey Dew Buttercream Frosting:

For this I just bought the pre-cut small container of honey dew melon from the store because it was guaranteed to be ripe. When I got home, I cup up the melon into small chunks, and put some sugar over it and set it in the fridge overnight.
I don't have a blender or a food processer, so again I had to improvise. I just mashed up the melon with a potato masher to get all of the juice out, and so it was mostly pureed (it worked better than I thought it would).

1/2 cup earth balance
1/2 cup shortening
3 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup honey dew juice
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup mashed/pureed honey dew

Once frosted, I garnished with a raspberry.
Thanks again, Klint!

Pinapple Upside Down Cupcakes:

These aren't really upside down, because they are cupcakes and it wouldn't be easy to do with cupcake liners. These are the easiest cupcakes to bake out of them all.

1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup crushed pinapple (in the juice)
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
2 teaspoons of vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes. Take out, set to cool.

Simple Vanilla Frosting:

1/2 cup earth balance
1/2 cup shortening
3 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup soy milk
2 tsp vanilla extract

To garnish, I sprinkled the tops with cinnamon and added a maraschino cherry.

Happy Baking!

Cat

Yes, that cupcake does say "Cat". Cat (or Catherine) is my sister. When I was out visiting her in California I was also lucky enough to be there for her birthday. She requested that I make her my cupcakes for her birthday, and she got her wish. These are Coconut Creme filled Chocolate Cupcakes. Kind of like a Hostess Cupcake (which I made before a few posts back), only with coconut a.k.a. one of the best combinations ever. Here is the recipe:

Coconut Creme filled Chocolate Cupcake:

1 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes
Take out, set to cool.

After the cupcakes are completely cooled off, you want to cut a hole in the top of the cupcake. I have pictures throughout my blog of this. If you follow it, you'll probably know what I'm talking about. Take a sharp knife and cut an upside down "cone" shape in the top of each cupcake. Take that piece out.

The filling for this is just simple vanilla frosting with coconut extract.

Simple Vanilla Frosting:

1/2 cup earth balance
1/2 cup shortening
3 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup soy milk

+ 1 tbsp of coconut extract

On the piece of cupcake you cut out, cut the cone shape off of the end (you can eat that part) so it's just the flat top part. Once you fill the part of cupcake you cut out with your filling, you can put the top back on it.

I topped this cupcake with chocolate ganache

Chocolate Ganache:

1/2 cup soy milk
2 1/2 cups semisweet vegan chocolate chips

Over low to medium heat, combine the soy milk and the chocolate chips in a sauce pan and keep mixing it until they mix together.

Once this is cooled off a bit (but still melty) put about a teaspoon of this over each cupcake and spread it around until it covers most, or all of the top.

With extra coconut frosting, you can put it into a piping bag and make a Hostess-esq design on the top.

I love you Catherine!
Happy Baking.

I'm finally updating!

Sorry about all of the recipes that I failed to post. I've been busy and lazy. I'm finally getting caught up with them. I still have about 6 other posts I need to update. Those will be coming soon. Either tonight, or tomorrow so keep checking back for them!

- Claire

Cupcakes, Muffins & Oatmeal Bars

I baked so many treats this time because I had a bunch of extra fruit left over and I was leaving on vacation the same week. I didn't want to have them go to waste, so I worked with what I had. I made Key Lime cupcakes, Banana Nut muffins, Blackberry muffins, and Plum Raspberry oatmeal bars. They were all fun and pretty easy to make. The oatmeal bars are always a hit. Enjoy!

Key lime Cupcakes:

1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup fresh key lime juice
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tbsp of key lime zest

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes. Take out, let cool.

Key Lime Frosting:

1/2 cup earth balance
1/2 cup shortening
3 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 half key lime juice, half soy milk
1 tbsp of key lime zest

Banana Nut Muffins:

These are the BEST banana nut muffins I've ever had. Unfortunately I got the recipe from my good friend Gaby. She asked me to keep the recipe a secret. Sorry!

Blackberry Muffins:

2 cups of flour
3 tsp of baking powder
1/2 cup soymilk
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup brown sugar
egg replacer- one egg
(I used about 1 1/4 cups of blackberries
feel free to add less though)
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. Take out, let cool.

Raspberry Plum Oatmeal Bars:

This is a great recipe I got from a cook book that I have at home. I'll have to fill this in later.

Happy Baking!

Blackberry Vanilla Bean & Black Forest Cupcakes

These are Blackberry Vanilla Bean and Black Forest Cupcakes. I really liked the outcome of both of them. These are both a little more time consuming and expensive to make, but they are worth it. give yourself at least 30 minutes of prep time for both of them.

Blackberry Vanilla Bean Cupcake:

1 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons of vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup of blackberries

Try smooshing the blackberries before you add them to the mix.. The batter should be purple.
After you have the mix all together, put 1 tbsp of the batter in the cupcake liner (in the pan). Set that aside for a few minutes. Put a handful of blackberries in a bowl and smoosh them together so all of the juice comes out. It may help putting them in the microwave for about 10 seconds first. Take the cupcake pan with the 1/2 filled cups, and with a spoon, drizzle about a teaspoon the blackberry juice over the batter. Once that is done, you can put the other tbsp of the batter over that.

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes. Take out, let cool.

Vanilla Bean Frosting:

1/2 cup earth balance
1/2 cup shortening
3 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup soy milk
1/2 of the extract from a vanilla bean pod

Once the cupcakes are frosted, you can garnish with a fresh blackberry!

Black Forest Cupcakes:

1 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup of maraschino cherry grenadine

about 15 fresh black cherries (use later)

This is close to the same process you go through with the blackberry cupcakes. Once you have your cupcake mix well blended, put 1 tbsp of the batter in the cupcake liner (in the pan). Set that aside for a few minutes.
Then you take the black cherries you set aside, and you slice them. you can usually get 4 slices from each cherry. This part can be a pain because the cherries do have pits inside of them.
Once you have your cherry slices, lay them on top of the batter in the cupcake pan. 3 or 4 slices fit per cup. After this, put one more tbsp of the batter over the cherries.

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes. Take out, let cool.
Keep in mind that the cherries can be very juicy depending on how ripe they are. You may want to leave them in for a few minutes longer than that.

Once cooled, frost with a simple vanilla frosting.

Simple Vanilla Frosting:

1/2 cup earth balance
1/2 cup shortening
3 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup soy milk

Garnish with a fresh black cherry and chopped pieces of chocolate

Happy Baking!

Chai Coconut Coffee & German Chocolate Cake Cupcakes

Both of these cupcakes came out delicious. I got the idea for the Chai Coconut Coffee cupcake from my friend Klint. As for the German Chocolate Cake cupcake, I have been meaning to make these for a while but i was hesitant because I wasn't sure what the outcome would be. I was actually surprised when they loved them. Anyway, I'll post the recipes for these later.


Chai Coconut Coffee Cupcakes:

1 cup chai soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tsp coconut extract

To make the chai soy milk, you can put the soy milk in a saucepan on low heat. Put 3-4 chai tea bags in the saucepan and let sit for 5 minutes. Take off the heat, and let cool. Squeeze all of the extra liquid from the teabags before you dispose of them.

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes. Take out, set to cool.

Coffee Coconut Butter Cream Frosting:

1/2 cup earth balance
1/2 cup shortening
3 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup really strong coffee
2 tsp coconut extract

I use instant coffee for the frosting. I put about 3 tbsp of the instant coffee in a bowl and add 5-6 tbsp of really hot water so it dissolves. Just measure it out and add it to the frosting.

You could even put coconut on the cupcake itself instead of adding the extract to the frosting if you wanted to decorate them!

German Chocolate Cake Cupcakes:


1 cup soy
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup cocoa powder

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes. Take out, Set to cool.

For the frosting, or topping I should say..it's basically coconut in caramel sauce with chopped pecans. Vegan caramel sauce isn't a very easy recipe. It's a lot thinner than your average caramel sauce and it can be hard to work with.

Caramel Sauce:

note: I got this recipe from the back of my confectioners sugar bag

3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup butter
1/4 cup soy milk
dash of salt


Directions:

In a small heavy saucepan, combine the brown sugar, butter, milk and salt. Cook and stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved.
Increase heat to medium and boil sauce for 3-6 minutes.
Set aside to cool. (it will thicken once it's cooled down)

Once it's cooled down, add about 2 cups of flaked coconut to the saucepan and fold the caramel sauce in with the coconut.

Chop about 1/2 cup of sugared pecans(or however much you want) and also add it to the coconut and caramel sauce. Fold together until they look well mixed in.

It's easier to put the topping on with a fork, So put about 1 fork fulls on each cupcake.

Happy Baking!!

Oreo, Confetti with Strawberry Frosting & PB&J

I baked my friend Brendan these cupcakes for his birthday. They all came out good. Blah Blah Blah. I'm slacking on updating this blog.

Chocolate Raspberry & Caramel Mocha Cinnamon Cupcakes

Banana Creme Pie & Oreo Cupcakes(again)

Posting recipes later

Tiramisu & Chocolate Coconut Cupcake

I'm really slacking with this blog. I always forget about it without meaning to but I'm going to try staying on top of it now. I have two other cupcakes to post about after these, which I baked about a month ago and I'm just posting about now. I baked Tiramisu and Chocolate Coconut cupcakes, and both came out good. I don't have excellent coconut extract, and I didn't use coconut milk for them or else they would've came out much better tasting. Someone eating the Tiramisu cupcake said "Holy Shit" after taking a bite out of it (in a good way). Here are the recipes:

Tiramisu Cupcake:

1 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tbsp of very very strong coffee (cooled)
(for the strong coffee, I have instant coffee grounds. I put 3 tbsp in a cup and 5 tbsp water)
1 tbsp of cocoa powder

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes. Take out, set to cool

Tiramisu Butter Cream Frosting:

1/2 cup earth balance
1/2 cup shortening
3 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup soy milk
2 tbsp strong coffee (cooled)
2 tbsp tofutti cream cheese

Pipe frosting on cupcakes. Then with a sifter, sift cocoa powder over the tops. Don't completely cover the cupcake with the powder though. Garnish with a chocolate covered espresso bean.

Chocolate Coconut Cupcakes:

1 cup coconut milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup cocoa powder
2 tsp good coconut extract

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes. Take out, set to cool.

Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting:

1/2 cup earth balance
1/2 cup shortening
3 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup soy milk
1/4 cup tofutti cream cheese
1 tsp coconut extract

Put a thick layer of the frosting on each cupcake with a frosting knife. Cover the tops with shredded sweetened coconut.

Happy Baking!

Sprinkles

Sprinkles is a cupcake shop/bakery out of Beverly Hills, CA. They are some of the best cupcakes I've had (they aren't vegan though, unfortunately!). My sister went to California last month and had a layover in Arizona (where my best friend lives). He picked her up from the airport, brought her to lunch, and also brought her to Sprinkles. I was extremely happy when I picked my sister up from Boston and she had cupcakes for me (pumpkin cupcake featured above). They were delicious. I think they are putting a Sprinkles in somewhere in Boston. Anyway, thanks a bunch to Justin for buying me cupcakes!