March 13, 2013

Vegan Chocolate Cookie Dough Cupcakes

 The best part of making cookies is always eating the cookie dough. Fortunately, vegan cookie dough is salmonella free, so your mom won't yell at you for eating it. This recipe is very similar to the chocolate whiskey cupcakes recipe that was put up a few weeks ago, sans whiskey, or maybe with whiskey if you're still into that. I’ve been told by a few people that these are their favorite cupcakes that I’ve put on the blog so far, hopefully you’ll think the same.


Chocolate Cupcake


Ingredients

1 cup flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup oil (as usual, I used safflower oil, but feel free to use anything)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup almond milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 350°.
2. Combine your 1 cup of almond milk and 1 tsp apple cider vinegar and let it sit. After a few minutes, it should start to curdle.
  3. Once curdled, beat in the 3/4 cup sugar, 1/3 cup oil, 1 tsp vanilla and 1/2 tsp almond extracts.
4. Slowly sift in all of your dry ingredients: 1 cup flour, 1/4 cup coco powder, 3/4 tsp baking soda, 3/4 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking powder.
5. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick can come out of the center clean.

I doubled the recipe and ended up with 21 cupcakes.

Chocolate Frosting

 

Ingredients

1/2 cup margarine (I use soy free Earth Balance)
1/2 cup Crisco
5 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 tbs almond milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups cocoa powder

 

Instructions

1. Start by beating together the 1/2 cup Crisco and 1/2 cup margarine.
2. Once the mixture starts to get fluffy add in the sugar one cup at a time, usually around 5 cups but feel free to improvise if it seems too thick or thin.
3. Add in 2 cups of cocoa powder.
 4. Finally add in 1 1/2 tbs milk, 1 1/2 tsp vanilla, and 2 tsp almond. 

 




 Cookie Dough

 

Ingredients


1 cup margarine
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 tbs water
2 cups flour
2 tsp vanilla
chocolate chips


Instructions


1. Beat together the 1 cup margarine and 1 1/2 cups brown sugar.
2. Add in 2 cups flour, 1 tbs water, and 2 tsp vanilla.
3. Once mixed add in the chocolate chips. I just eye balled this until I found it to be enough. I think I ended up using about 2 cups.


Vegan chocolate chips can be found in most health food stores. A problem that most people have in finding vegan chocolate is mistaking cocoa butter for being dairy. While butter is usually a scary word cocoa butter is just the fatty part of the cocoa bean, totally vegan. 

This is the brand that I usually like to use.


Assembly 


1. Use a knife to cut a walnut sized hole in each of the cupcake.


2. With your hands shape the cookie dough into balls and fill the cupcakes.


3. Pipe each cupcake, with either a piping bag or tube, or a plastic bag. 

As you can see some of mine got kind of sloppy, they do get easier the more you do it though.

4. I think these cupcakes look fine with just the frosting but I decided to decorate some of mine with surprisingly vegan cookie cereal. I was looking for Cookie Crisp but ended up with my grocery store's knock off brand.