I baked these babies in anticipation of Graduation photoshoot weekend. Aren’t they adorable??
Getting here was tough though. I was trying to make healthy cupcakes, aka tofu cupcakes. Don’t snub the tofu before you taste it.
But that’s another problem. I couldn’t get the perfect texture, or quite possibly, didn’t replace butter and eggs with the correct amount of tofu. Unlike Betty Crocker cake mix, 1 package of silken tofu replaces 1/3 cup vegetable oil and 2 eggs ( I think), but didn’t manage to achieve it with my from scratch vanilla cupcake recipe.
Weird right?? They tasted a little bit like pancakes, and were hard to remove from the black cake liners.
Then on to Recipe 2, which was supposed to be vegan cupcakes. So they were egg-free, and used vegetable oil instead of butter. Which is supposed to be on the lighter side.
About 10 minutes in the oven, I already felt that this was going to turn out to be a disaster. The top part was glistening and shining with sugar! And it sank within seconds after removing them from the oven!! Loved the colour though.
True enough! It was really sweet, but still. More edible than the tofu PANcupcakes.
Argh! I had half the batter left, and figured that it was possibly my fault for not adding the correct amount of flour (In my defense, I was really depressed about the PANcupcakes!), so I added enough flour till I think it’s the right texture.
Third time’s the charm!
I’ve never been so glad to see the proper cake texture! And they tasted great!
I frosted them with cream cheese frosting, and used Lindt chocolate squares to make the mortarboards, with Van Houten choc as the mortarboard stand, and twizzlers dipped in melted chocolate for the tassles.
Sounds like a lot of work, but it was super fun!
Vanilla vegan cupcakes
Ingredients:
1 tbsp rice/white vinegar
1 1/2 cups soy milk/low fat milk
2 cups caster sugar
2 1/4 cups self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla essence
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 180 C. Add vinegar and oil to milk. Put everything else into the mixer bowl.
2. Pour over the oil/milk/vinegar liquid.
3. Set mixer to low and beat just long enough to combine everything.
4. Set mixer to medium speed and WHISK for 1 minute, stopping halfway through to scrape down the bowl.
5. Scoop and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.
Cream cheese frosting
Ingredients:
1 package cream cheese, softened
50g butter, softened
Icing sugar, sifted
Directions:
1. Beat butter and cream cheese until combined.
2. Gradually beat icing sugar into mixture, adding 1 cup at a time, until desired consistency.
Assembling the cupcakes:
1. Spread cream cheese frosting.
2. Place a piece of Van Houten chocolate coated raisin in the middle.
3. Arrange Lindt chocolate square to resemble mortarboard.
4. Using melted chocolate as glue, stick the chocolate coated twizzler strands to resemble tassles.
Tada!
The bear wants the cupcake too!
Congratulations to us, Class of 2009!
