Tangerine Zest Cupcakes

I've always been very fond of tangerines, I loved getting the canned version during visits at my Grandmother's house. Now I would never touch those things considering all the artificial shit they pump in. James and I were at Wholefoods® the other day and we had to grab tangerines for this tangerine baked tofu recipe we were preparing from our bible Veganomicon. I instantly thought of a making tangerine cupcakes, because that's all this unemployed queen can think about right now.

The recipe I came up with was a tangerine overload, these cupcakes were so amazing I almost wanted to hide them and develop another eating disorder. The cake itself has tangerine juice and zest, and i topped the cupcake with a tangerine butter cream frosting also with a little juice and a lot of zest. I think these are in my top ten best cupcakes thus far. I'll be taking what's left to a vegan outing tonight, I think they'll all love them or hopefully just lie and tell me they love them.

I'm a cake man, I have a strong distaste for lots of frosting a little is great if its used to highlight the cupcake and not cover up a mediocre cake. Many of the "in vogue" cupcake places (most of which do not carry vegan anything) pile on the frosting so much so that all you see is a wad of frosting. Gross. Lately I've been experimenting with vegan butter cream frosting with a lot of success with citrusy frostings. Starting with a standard butter cream frosting recipe of;

1/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup margarine
2 cups of powdered sugar

Once you've creamed the margarine and shortening together slowly add in the powdered sugar adding splashes of citrus juice until well mixed. Then simply add in 2-3 teaspoons of zest and you've got a killer frosting.