the vegan fork: Cupcake madness

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Cupcake madness

You probably think "madness" is an exaggeration...but...wait until you see.

So....you've probably heard of the new book "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World," right? Yeah, me too. And I've been making some good progress towards trying every recipe in the book. Okay, I'm not really trying to make every recipe, and I can't resist tweaking them all, but I have been making quite a few cupcakes lately, mostly from the book.

The recipes are great, but really the most valuable part of the book are the tips it offers and a lot of the inspiring pictures. I had never been able to make such fluffy buttercream before I started playing with the techniques (and proportions) suggested in the book. Also, the tips on how full to fill the liners have helped me make my cupcakes consistent and (generally) the right level.

Anyway, on to the pictures of my experiments!

I made the golden vanilla cupcakes, but wanted to make them lemon. I think I had an actual lemon in the fridge, but in a true fit of laziness, I relied solely on lemon extract for the cake and icing....turned out delicious, though.

Fancy cupcakes

I later made another batch with lemon zest and juice (in addition to extract) and it was also delicious. I followed the buttercream recipe in the book, using zest and juice, and I think it actually would have been better with less juice and with a bit of the extract instead. I think the perfect buttercream would be a mix between the two that I made.

Lemon cupcake

I also tried the "sexy lowfat" cupcakes. They were good, but they did taste low fat...a little more like a muffin than a cupcake. I topped them with a dollop of raspberry buttercream (made with raspberry jam). If you make sure to get a bit of buttercream in each bite, the lowfatness of the cakes isn't so noticeable.

vanilla and raspberry

I made the chocolate cupcakes with a bit of black cocoa to make them very dark and rich. I made a kahlua buttercream to go with these. I called them "mudcups" because they're so dark and chocolaty.

Mud cups

And they had a bit of buttercream on the inside as filling (not enough...I was too hesitant with the buttercream filling)

Mud cup innards

This is a mini mint chocolate cake. It was SO good! And SO cute!

Mini Mint Yumminess

I think the best recipe in the book (at least that I've tried) is the carrot cake. I increased the spices some, and I think it's important to use really high quality vanilla, but it's definitely the best carrot cake I've ever had. This one has "cream cheese" icing on top...I did another batch with the "cream cheese" icing and then topped in toasted coconut.

Mini carrot cupcakes with "cream cheese" icing

The chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with vanilla icing are both really good...they're classics, but crowd pleasers!

Mini cupcakes

vanilla cupcakes

The red velvet ("crimson velveteen" in the book) turned out disastrous for me. I tried twice. they overflowed and fell. In my second batch I filled them less, but even when they didn't overflow, they still fell.

Red velvet disappointment

And they weren't red, even though they were when they went in the oven (I blame it on the natural food coloring I use).

Red velvet batter

I recently made some vanilla cupcakes with strawberry "cream cheese" filling, vanilla buttercream icing, and strawberries on top. These were fun to make and fun to come up with. I had tried three different fillings -- strawberry "cream cheese," strawberry buttercream, and vanilla buttercream. The strawberry "cream cheese" was the best so that's the one I went with.

Fillings

Birthday cupcakes

I tried a few other recipes from the book, but these are the most exciting. I do plan to keep working my way through the book and to keep experimenting, though!

3 Comments:

Blogger Rage And Love said...

that's a bunch of cupcake porn! oooo! i want some cupcakes now!

Jun 4, 2007, 10:15:00 PM  
Blogger jd said...

Ooo! These cupcakes are super-cute! I especially adore the ones with strawberries on top...

You definitely seem to have a knack for making frosting look great, too. I'm totally jealous :)

Dec 28, 2007, 8:45:00 PM  
Blogger Kellie said...

i had the exact same problem with the red velvet cupcakes, as well as the dulce sin leche ones. they rose and fell and then fell apart. i cant figure out what mix of ingredients is doing it.

Jul 18, 2008, 6:56:00 PM  

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