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.