Vegan cupcakes

As a relatively new vegan cook, I’ve never felt compelled to bake. Baking is a science, and honestly, I chose my college major because it didn’t have a biology requirement. But all that changed when I inhaled a vegan cupcake at SweetArt Bakeshop and Art Studio in the Shaw neighborhood. The cake was a deep, dark chocolate, moist, with just the right amount of crumb. But it was the buttery-yet-no-butter-added frosting that really rocked my world. If this was vegan baking, I needed to figure it out. Because SweetArt owner Reine Bayoc is an incredibly kind person (or maybe she just wanted me to stop licking the display cases), she agreed to talk with me about vegan baking. SweetArt isn’t a dedicated vegan bakery – only two to three of its 10 to 12 cupcake varieties are vegan – but vegans-in-the-know flock there. What makes Bayoc’s vegan cupcakes so memorable is that their taste and texture is completely indistinguishable from traditional cupcakes. “Just because you can’t – or choose not to – eat eggs and butter, you still need food to be delicious,” Bayoc explained. And then, in her sweetest move yet, Bayoc divulged some of the ingredients that make her from-scratch vegan desserts so special. I wasn’t surprised that Bayoc uses only high-quality pure vanilla extract. Even I know that imitation vanilla, while less expensive, is less flavorful. However, my jaw dropped when she told me that the creamy texture of her magical vegan frosting is due in part to vegan cream cheese. Regular readers know I don’t like to cook with manufactured vegan ingredients like soy substitutes or seitan because, generally speaking, they’re weird. But the cupcake crumbs on my chin left me in no position to argue. With Bayoc’s final advice to “just keep playing with it until you get it right” ringing in my ears and an extra three cupcakes in my hand, I headed home to teach myself vegan baking. Bayoc mentioned that it’s difficult to make a moist vegan vanilla cupcake (although, of course, she can). I was happy to take the hint and experiment with chocolate cake, especially since I’d had success making a velvety vegan chocolate mousse using avocado and inexpensive cocoa. Unfortunately, what worked in the raw mousse yielded a bland, gummy cupcake. For my second attempt, I switched to a darker, premium cocoa and used vegetable shortening instead of avocado. The resulting cupcakes tasted better, but since they were egg-free, the texture was still too dense. Hoping for a charmed third try, I substituted coconut oil (one of Bayoc’s favorite ingredients) for the shortening, and added apple cider vinegar, which left no taste but gave the baking soda and powder a little extra leavening oomph. The result: a delicious dark chocolate cupcake that neither felt nor tasted muddy. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t duplicate the fresh, buttery taste of Bayoc’s vanilla frosting. Instead, I made a peppermint frosting since peppermint and dark chocolate go together like English majors and science-avoidance. Peppermint extract is readily available at the grocery store, and chopped peppermints add a fun little sparkle to the finished cupcakes. With the flavor puzzle solved, I focused on the texture. I started with powdered sugar and then added various combinations of vegan cream cheese, coconut oil, shortening and margarine. I presented spoons and bowls of frosting to my children for a taste test. Three stomachaches later, they selected a winner. It turns out that vegan cream cheese really is the secret to making a thick frosting with a creamy texture. Besides a dozen and a half yummy cupcakes, my week of immersion baking resulted in two other takeaways. One, I shouldn’t be afraid to use manufactured vegan products. They might be weird on their own, but clearly can work wonders as an ingredient. The other lesson was that Bayoc was absolutely right about fighting with recipes until they taste good, not just good-for-vegans. In an era when everyone has a dietary requirement, delicious should be one of them. And if you can’t figure it out, I know a nice lady who will help you. DARK CHOCOLATE VEGAN CUPCAKES 18 CUPCAKES 1½ cups all-purpose flour 1¼ cups sugar 1 cup unsweetened cocoa, such as Ghirardelli Premium Baking Cocoa 1 tsp. baking soda 1 tsp. baking powder ¼ tsp. sea salt ¼ cup coconut oil, melted 1½ cups plain soy milk 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract 2 tsp. apple cider vinegar • Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners. • In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and sea salt. Set aside. • In a separate bowl, use a hand mixer to combine the coconut oil, soy milk and vanilla extract. Set aside. • Make a well in the center of the bowl with the dry ingredients, and pour the wet ingredients into it. Mix well using the hand mixer. Add the apple cider vinegar and mix again. • Distribute the batter evenly among the cupcake liners. Bake 25 minutes. Allow to cool completely before frosting. VEGAN PEPPERMINT “BUTTERCREAM” FROSTING 1½ CUPS ¼ cup vegan cream cheese, such as Daiya Plain Cream Cheese Style Spread 3 Tbsp. vegetable shortening, such as Spectrum Organic All Vegetable Shortening 1 Tbsp. soy margarine, such as Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks 4 cups powdered sugar 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract ½ tsp. peppermint extract 1 Tbsp. plus 2 tsp. plain soy milk 10 pieces vegan hard peppermint candy, such as Brach’s Star Brites Peppermint Starlight Mints, wrappers discarded • In a large bowl, use a hand mixer to cream together the cream cheese, shortening and soy margarine. With the mixer on low, add the powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, blending after each addition. (The mixture will be very dry.) Add the vanilla extract, peppermint extract and soy milk. Mix on low until the texture resembles thick frosting. • Scoop the frosting into a pastry bag fitted with a round tip. Pipe onto completely cooled cupcakes. • Using a food processor, pulse the peppermint candies until they resemble coarse flakes. Sprinkle over the frosted cupcakes.