December 6, 2012

Vegan Apple Pie Cupcakes


These might be some of the most time consuming cupcakes I’ve made, but trust me they're worth it.  They make for a pretty heavy cake and will most likely require a fork to eat. There are four different things you’re going to need to whip up when making these cupcakes. A simple vanilla cupcake, apple pie filling, caramel frosting and a crumbly topping.

Vanilla Cupcakes

 

Ingredients

-1/2 cup margarine
-3/4 cup sugar
-4 tbs arrow root
(Arrow root is used as an egg replacement. In most egg recipes 2 tbs of arrow root can be used to substitute 1 egg. You can find arrow root in most health food stores.)
-2 cups flour
-1/2 tsp salt
-1/4 tsp baking soda
-1/2 tsp baking powder
-1 cup almond milk
(As usual feel free to use any type of milk you’d like)
-1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Cream together margarine and sugar, add in arrow root.
 3. Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl, flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder.
4. Alternate adding in dry ingredients and milk to the margarine and sugar mixture, then add vanilla. 5. Bake for 20 minutes.


Apple Pie Filling 

 

Ingredients  

-1/2 cup margarine
-3 tbs flour
-1/4 cup water
-1/2 cup sugar
-1/2 cup brown sugar
-8 medium apples

Instructions

1.The first thing I did was core, peel and chop the apples. I did this the night before because it can take a while.

I chopped the apples into much smaller pieces than you would for a normal apple pie, remember these pieces need to be small enough to fit inside of the cupcake.

2. Once your apples are prepared, melt your margarine in a sauce pan and stir in the flour. Lesson learned, be sure to start this off on low heating to avoid burning your butter.
3. Once melted add your water, sugar and brown sugar and bring to a light boil. Reduce the heat once boiling and let simmer for a few minutes. Stir the mixture through out this process a few times to avoid it sticking to the bottom of the pan.
4. Pour mixture over chopped apples in a glass bowl.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes. I took mine out after 45 minutes because I wanted the apples to not be completely soft, if you prefer them to be softer feel free to cook the filling longer.

Caramel Frosting 

 

Ingredients   

-1/2 cup margarine
-1 cup brown sugar
-1/4 cup almond milk
-1 tsp vanilla
-1/2 cup shortening
-5 cups powdered sugar

Instructions

1. Mix margarine and brown sugar together in a sauce pan on medium heat. Stirring constantly let the mixture boil for about a minute.
2. After boiling remove the mixture from the heat and stir in your milk and vanilla extract.
3. In a separate bowl beat together shortening and 1 cup of powered sugar.
4. Once blended alternate adding in the margarine mixture and the rest of the powered sugar.


Crumbs

 

   Ingredients  

-1 cup flour
-1 cup brown sugar
-6 tbs margarine

Instructions

1. Stir together all ingredients until crumbly texture starts to form.
2. Spread out on a lined baking sheet and cook for 20 minutes on 350 degrees.
3. You want to take these out of the oven after 20 minutes even if they don’t seem done, they will harden after taking them out. If your crumbs become flat while cooking scramble them around with a spatula while their still warm.

Cupcake Assembly

 

1. Wait for your cupcake to cool down before assembly. Once cool use a butter knife to cut a decent size cone shaped hole in your cupcakes. I have tried many different methods and tools to pit cupcakes and have found just using a knife is the easiest.


2. Use a spoon to fill your empty cupcakes with the apple pie filling.



3. Frost the outer rims of the cupcakes. Once the frosting has sat in the bowl for a few minutes its texture becomes somewhat doughy. Instead of spreading the frosting with a knife, I used my fingers to mold it on.



4. Place a layer of crumbs on top of the frosted edges and fill the middle opening with more apple pie filling. If your feeling daring, or bored, I found a caramel sauce recipe on vegweb that I think would be great drizzled on top.




November 24, 2012

Vegan Green Tea Cupcakes

These definitely did not turn out to be the prettiest cupcakes I’ve made, but looks aside this is one of my favorite recipes. One of the reasons I enjoy it so much is because of what a light cupcake it is. The taste of the green tea really comes out in the frosting, while hints of it can be found in the almond infused cupcake. I am incapable of only baking a small batch, so I doubled everything in this recipe. Which came out to 18 cupcakes.

Green Tea Cupcake

Ingredients


-1/2 cup margarine
(This can also be substituted with soy yogurt. I don’t eat soy and normally use soy free Earth Balance. To read more about soy products check this site out)
-2/3 cup almond milk
(This can be substituted with soy, rice, tigers, whatever kind of milk you want)
-1/3 cup oil
(I use safflower oil in most of my recipes because it is lower in saturated fat and makes for a much lighter cake)
-1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
-1/2 teaspoon almond extract
-1/4 teaspoon baking soda
-1 teaspoon baking powder
-1 1/4 cups flour
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-3/4 cup sugar
-4 teaspoons matcha tea powder

Instructions 


1. Before we start anything preheat your oven to 350°F 
2. The first thing I had to do before starting this recipe was create a matcha tea powder dupe. I was able to find the powder in stores, but was a bit reluctant to spend twenty dollars on tea. Instead I bought some decaf green tea bags, which were much cheaper and I knew I would use the left overs. You could probably use the tea as it comes in the bags but I chose to grind it to be able to infuse the cupcakes with more flavor. It took me about 23 tea bags to grind enough for the cupcakes and the frosting.
And yes when your grandma comes into the kitchen she will think your coffee grinder is full of marijuana.


3. After you’ve taken care of the tea you are going to whisk together all of your wet ingredients. This includes the margarine, milk, vanilla and almond extracts and oil.
4. Once thoroughly blended together you’re going to slowly sift in all of your dry ingredients, baking powder, baking soda, flour, salt, sugar, and tea powder. Feel free to use more or less tea depends on your taste.
5.Fill your liners about two-thirds of the way full and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick can be pulled clean from the center of the cake. I always use the Reynolds Baking Cups for lining my cupcakes. These are supposed to be used for baking without pan but I like to use them in a pan. I like the look of the foil wrappers more than a paper one, they are also a bit bigger than a normal wrapper. 

This is what the cupcakes looked like after about 15 minutes, at which point I cursed myself for having put to much batter in the liners.
But once they were finished cooking they sunk back down to a normal size. Some of the cake did overflow the wrapper but it was easily removed.

Green Tea Frosting

Ingredients 

-4 tablespoons margarine
-2 cups powdered sugar
-1 teaspoon matcha tea powder
-2 tablespoons almond milk
(same alternate milk rules apply)
-1/8 teaspoon teaspoon vanilla
-1/4 teaspoon of almond

 

Instructions 

1. Briefly beat the margarine, powdered sugar, and matcha powder. This will create a crumbly mixture, if it seems like your doing something wrong, its right.
2. Next beat in the milk and almond and vanilla extracts. At this point again you can add more tea depending on your preference.


Once frosted I decided to garnish my cupcakes with some vegan gummy bears. I figured panda bears, green tea, china, I know a bit of a stretch. I just wanted something cute to put on top. Feel free to think of something more clever.