Vegan Cherry Cupcakes

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! I made some excellent cherry cupcakes. Tada!

I took them to work and everyone said they were great.  So on to the recipe then…

Vegan Cherry Cupcakes:

1 cup vegan sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 cup rice milk

1 tsp. vinegar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. cherry extract

1 tsp. almond extract

1 1/4 cups flour

2 tbsp. cornstarch

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

about 8 maraschino cherries rinsed and dried well. broken in to big chunks.

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and put paper liners in your muffin pan.

In a glass measuring cup, add rice milk and vinegar and set aside to curdle. Note that rice milk does not curdle the same way soy milk does, or as well. So use soy if you would prefer. I like the taste of rice better and the texture it produces. Leave the mixture about 7 minutes.

In a large mixing bowl mix together sugar, oil, extracts and milk mixture until smooth.

Sift in all dry ingredients and mix until all the big lumps are gone. Do not over mix.

add large chunks of cherries and fold in to mixture. I found if I made the pieces of cherry too small it messed up the texture of my cupcakes. One cherry should equal about 3 chunks.

spoon batter in to liners about 3/4 full. Bake for 20-22 minutes.

I used the vegan butter cream recipe I posted a few entries back. I just added some almond extract and instead of water I used the juice from the cherry jar. Hope everyone likes these!

Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

Peanut butter cookies….sooooooo comforting and tasty! I decided I wanted to give them a go tonight and the results were excellent. These cookies are freakin’ amazing.

Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies:

1 1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

3/4 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup vegetable shortening(non hydrogenated)

3 tbsp. rice or soy milk(I used rice)

1 tbsp. vanilla

1 tbsp. unsweetened applesauce

1 3/4 cup sifted A.P flour

3/4 tsp. Baking Soda

pinch of salt

Method:

1. Preheat oven 375 degrees.

2. combine brown sugar, peanut butter, shortening, rice milk, and vanilla is large mixing bowl. Beat until well blended. Add applesauce and beat until just blended.

3. Combine flour, Baking soda, and salt in another bowl. Slowly add dry ingredients to peanut butter mixture. Beat on low until just blended. Do not over beat.

4. Drop spoonfuls on to a cookie sheet with parchment paper, 2 inches away from each other and flatten with the bag of a fork.

5. Bake 7-8 minutes only. Just until set. They will not look fully done when you take them out of the oven. Remove from oven and let cool on cookie sheet for 2 minutes. Transfer to a sheet of foil to fully cool.

There you have it! Awesome cookies that are soft in the center but a little crisp on the edges. yum!

Vegan Cupcakes!

Happy New Year Everyone! I hope you had a fabulous New Year’s Eve. Mine was very pleasant:-) I made some cupcakes for a party and they were AWESOME. I seriously considered not sharing my recipe because it’s so tasty. I decided that would be pretty crappy of me though. They are double chocolate cupcakes with vegan buttercream. This recipe also works really well for cakes because it will reallllllllly rise. So be sure not to fill your cupcake liners more than half way full. My first batch were extra puffy and I think smaller mounds just look neater. I just piped the flowers on and then ate like 3 in a row. soooo good.

Double Chocolate Vegan Cupcakes:

1/4 shortening

1 1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1/4 cup vegan chocolate syrup(Hershey’s Syrup is vegan)

4 tsps. unsweetened applesauce

2tsps. of vanilla or other extract of your choice

1 tsp. baking soda

1 1/4 cups rice milk

3 cups self rising flour

pinch of salt

3/4 cocoa powder

12oz. vegan chocolate chips

Method:

1. Cream together shortening, sugar, and both kinds of syrup.

2. In separate bowl dissolve baking soda in soy milk.

3. Add applesauce and extract and beat until well blended.

4. Sift flour, salt, and cocoa together in separate bowl. Alternately add the shortening and milk mixtures to dry ingredients until well blended.

5. Fold in Chocolate chips and bake at 325 degrees from 25-30 minutes.

Vegan Buttercream:

1 cup vegetable shortening

1 cup vegan margarine

3 tsps. water(+more as needed)

1 1/2 tsp. extract of your choice. I like Vanilla and almond mixed.

2lbs. confectioners sugar

Method:

1. Cream shortening and margarine together until light and fluffy.

2. Add water and shortening and mix to combine.

3. Sift sugar and add slowly to shortening. Fully incorporating it before adding more. If you are using a hand mixer be aware that you need to do this slowly or you will burn out your mixer. I know from experience. Add water a tsp. at a time while mixing, but be careful. It can get too thin for piping really quickly.  Once well mixed and to the consistency of your choice you can add color.

These little cupcakes are rich, moist and oh so tasty. I know it is a long recipe, but so worth it. Happy Baking!

Vegan Peanutbutter Fudge

So I made some fudge a little while ago and it was really yummy! I am trying to stop myself from eating the whole pan. Really easy and no messing with candy thermometers.

Recipe:

1/2 Cup Vegan margarine

2 cups brown sugar

1/2 Cup Soy Milk

1 Cup Vegan, natural, or organic peanutbutter

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3 cups confectioners sugar

Method:

1. Melt margarine in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in brown sugar and soy milk. Bring to a rolling boil and boil for 2 minutes, stirring frequently.

2. Remove from heat. Stir in peanut butter and vanilla.

3. Pour over confectioners’ sugar in a large mixing bowl. Beat until smooth; pour into an 8×8 inch dish. Chill until firm and cut into squares.

Soooo good.

Vegan Sugar Cookies!

These cookies were super easy to make and really tasty as well. I used rolled buttercream for the decorations, and I’m not too sure how I feel about it yet. It’s really greasy and hard to work with, but it really does taste better than fondant. I’ll try it a few more times and see if it grows on me. All my cookies just look greasy and melted though. Hmmm, we’ll see. If you are interested in trying rolled buttercream, I used this recipe here.

A few tips on the cookies before the recipe:Don’t chill dough for too long or it gets really hard and crumbles. This happened to me tonight and I just added a dab of water and  kneaded it until it was the right consistency again. I added probably a tbsp. of water.  Also, this dough never fully comes together with a mixer. It gets to the course cornmeal stage and then you need to get in there with your hands and just smash it all together. It will stick together really easily. Form a ball of dough, wrap in saran wrap and chill for about 2 hours. In this recipe, and really any recipe I post that calls for vegetable shortening, it is best to use trans fat free crisco or spectrum shortening. I didn’t have either for this batch of cookies so it is just regular old crisco. The results were great, but I don’t really need to have a massive coronary from some cookies. So I highly recommend TRANS FAT FREE SHORTENING. The only reason I used shortening at all was to try and add some extra fat in to make up for the lack of eggs. I’m sure you could skip the shortening all together and just use margarine if you’d prefer. Also, be sure to bake only for 8-9 minutes. When your timer goes off take them out of the oven and immediately transfer to wire rack to cool. They will not look done yet, but trust me, they are. They will not be brown at all. As soon as they stop looking wet is when you want to take them out. Be careful when transferring them because they will be very fragile and soft. Once they cool they will be perfectly chewy, and not too crisp. Cooking too long will cause them to be rock hard when they cool.  Don’t roll too thin or they will be too crispy when cooled. The dough is tricky to roll(crumbly) out so just use small amounts instead of trying to roll out large pieces.  Having said all that, on to the recipe…mmm,cookies

Vegan Sugar Cookies

yields 12-16 depending on the size of cookie cutter

1 1/2  cups flour

1/2 tsp. Baking powder

1/4 cup vegan margarine(I used Earth Balance)softened

1/4 cup vegetable shortening

1/3 tsp. salt

3/4 cup organic non bone char sugar(Such as this )

1 tbsp. of cornstarch whisked in to 3 tbsp. water

3 tbsp. soy or rice milk if you have it. If not, water will work fine.

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Method:

1. Sift flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt and set aside.

2. Cream together margarine, shortening, and sugar until light and fluffy.

3.  Add cornstarch and water mixture, soy milk, and vanilla and mix to combine.

4. Slowly add dry ingredients a little at a time. Mix until fully combined. Your dough will look crumbly at this point. Get in there with your hands and mash it all together. Chill for up to 2 hours

5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease cookie sheets or use parchment paper. On a clean floured surface, roll out small portions of chilled dough to 1/4 to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut out shapes using cookie cutters. and bake for 8-9 minutes, or until not wet looking. Cool on wire racks.

Once these are cooled you can decorate however you’d like! Feel free to ask any questions. Enjoy!