Chocolate Lavender Cupcakes

I haven't made a cupcake in over a month and I was feeling particularly sour about that yesterday. Its sort of spring in Seattle right now and lavender is a big part of spring and summer here. A few years ago I tried to make a lavender cupcake and it flopped. My mistake was in using an extract and not the real thing.

This time around I used a slightly modified version of a chocolate cake recipe that I'm fond of and I decided to use lavender in the icing only. I stepped the lavender buds in hot soy creamer and then chilled the mixture before adding it to margarine and powdered sugar that I had been mixing together. I was bad and didn't measure a thing which is fine so long as the result is good. Thankfully it was. The cake was extra moist and the lavender icing was perfect.

Hazelnut Cupcakes

Going off the success of the Pistachio cupcakes I made a few weeks back I decided to try out a rich hazelnut cupcake. We had some extra hazelnuts and I had recently purchased some hazelnut oil at the local import store. Learning from past mistakes I toasted the hazelnuts for 10-15 minutes and was able to easily remove the skin from the nuts. I then added the hazelnuts to a food processor and processed until I had a small granules (Hazelnut Meal).

After the cupcakes were finished baking I prepared a rich cocoa butter cream from 100% cocoa powder and topped with a little leftover hazelnut meal. These cupcakes melt in your mouth a nice success that day considering the previous batch of cupcakes I made lacked baking soda and tasted like play dough. Prep before you bake.

Mexican Chocolate Cupcakes with Cacoa Nibs

I haven't made these cupcakes in well over a year or so and I forgot how delicious they are. There's nothing better than resurrecting an awesome recipe that kills. I specifically made these for the office Halloween Party. I wanted to add a little something on top to make it look like dirt because we had these cheesy plastic hands that you can stick into the cake. Loved the addition of the nibs, I think next time incorporating nibs into the cupcake will make it even better.

Maple Cupcakes

I've only made these once to bring into the office, I omitted the walnut because of a nut allergy and they still turned out terrific. I'd like to try them again with walnuts or pecans.

Orange Blossom Cupcakes with Matcha Icing

These cupcakes have been months in the making, I was dorking out in a big way when I finally got to make them. When we were in Paris in early June I stumbled upon orange blossom water and got excited at the prospect of bringing back an ingredient that wasn't readily available in the States. My fondest memory from that trip was strolling through the Tuileries with James inhaling the the scent of orange blossoms. Sadly I was mistaken regarding its availability because every WholeFoods or Mediterranean Market carries it. On the bright side I'll be able to make these cupcakes whenever I want.

I started with a simple vanilla cupcake and instead of vanilla extract I used about 2 tablespoons of orange blossom water. This gives the cupcake a subtle flavor of orange blossom. The hardest part was coming up with the right frosting/icing to compliment the cake. I made two different frostings before I decided upon using a matcha icing. The flavors work really well together and as almost always the cupcakes disappeared within minutes.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Cream Cheese

I don't know why its taken me so long to put strawberries and cupcakes together, the two go together like rainbows and unicorns. I was in the mood to bake last week and this was the result, a easy vanilla cupcake with tofu cream cheese and a strawberry puree. I used a blender to blend down the strawberries added a hint of balsamic vinegar to bring out the strawberry flavor and yahtzee! instant cupcake delight.

Vanilla Hazelnut Cupcakes

I've been wanting to make a decent quick hazelnut cupcake for a while now I just haven't been in the cupcaking mood the last few months. I made these for a small family Fourth of July celebration and they tasted fantastic. I used a simple vanilla cupcake recipe and added 1/3 cup of hazelnut meal to the batter to get a nice, but not overpowering hazelnut taste. I think you can buy hazelnut meal at a local Co-op or specialty store for an arm and a leg, using a food processor does the same thing for a fraction of the price. I can't believe I actually used to live without one of those.

For the icing I used a quick chocolate ganache from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. And dusted with crumbled hazelnuts.

Chocolate Ghost Chili with Orange Buttercream

This is take two of the ghost chili cupcake, the first one was very successful but had a fair amount of room for improvement. In the first attempt I had a few proportions off which I was able to correct I also used a simple ganache to top the cupcake which I replaced with an orange cream cheese icing. The reviews were very good, not a single cupcake was left that night. ( I made four dozen).

Chocolate Trinity

We decided a few weeks back that we would once again host a Vegan Sunday now that we're in a new space that's quite a bit larger than the last. The theme was pre-Valentine's Day and as an extra bonus I decide to get tiny pink pastry boxes so that everyone could take a few cupcakes home with them. At first I wasn't sure what I was going to do and then I settled on about ten different kinds of cupcakes and then decided I didn't know what I was going to do.

I finally came to my senses and kept it easy, I was going to make simple chocolate and vanilla cupcakes and do something different with the frosting. A chocolate cupcake with chocolate ganache and chocolate cream cheese frosting to round out the choco-overload. The hardest part was trying to tame the chocolate cream cheese frosting that had the consistency of feta. Sadly I was never able to spread it in the way I hopped, it was still delicious.

Chocolate Fennel Cupcakes

These were a last minute dessert for a dinner a few weeks back. I'm kicking myself for not taking any pictures.

A friend invited James and I over for dinner and on the day of asked if I could bring a dessert. She said all she had were figs and that she'd like to have me bake something. I had about an hour and a half post-work. I asked James what would go well with figs, he said fennel. Fennel? I've put stranger things in a cupcake, so I decided to make a simple chocolate cupcake and add some crushed fennel (about a teaspoon). I topped with a fantastic chocolate cream cheese frosting.

The Chocolate Fennel went really well with the figs after dinner, I have to give James all the credit on this one.

Chocolate Hazelnut Cupcakes with Orange Buttercream

I first made these cupcakes a few months ago while tinkering with using real chocolate over dutch-processed cocoa powder. I prefer the taste of melted down chocolate over that of cocoa powder, the switch doesn't require a much extra effort just a few minutes of careful melting in a microwave or using a double boiler.

In this recipe I also decided to play with the flour a tiny bit. I'm a huge fan of almond meal so naturally I suspected that I might enjoy hazelnut meal and I had a ton of raw hazelnuts on hand. Naturally I thought that orange would be the best topping, but I suspect a nice creamy hazelnut or chocolate buttercream would be awesome in this recipe too. I stole the orange buttercream recipe from 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World', my trusty cupcake bible.

The result was nothing more than a food orgasm. The chocolate worked wonders and the hazelnut meal added a great flavor and a little texture. The cupcakes were moist and devoured quickly and were well received by all. I recently made a ton of these for my partner's office and got rave reviews, he's bringing more tomorrow and I've got people asking me if they can get cupcakes this weekend. Good thing I have plenty of hazelnuts.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Summer has been far to hot for baking. Now that things are cooling down in the Pacific Northwest I'm able to whip up plenty of vegan delights that will keep me working out for a lifetime.

A friend of mine recently had a housewarming party and she requested chocolate cupcakes and a red velvet cupcake. My first attempt for a vegan red velvet cupcake was a disaster, so I was eager to try again. I use the recipe from 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World' and paid close attention to everything as last time my cupcakes collapsed in on themselves. This time I had success, and I was quite satisfied with the final product. I also used Isa's old fashion frosting recipe which worked well for the cupcake, but the texture was a little grainy for my taste.

The cupcakes were eaten by unsuspecting omnivores who couldn't believe the cupcakes were vegan. The chocolate cupcakes I brought along with the red velvet were topped with a tasty whiskey butter cream.

More to come, I've been trying out a few recipes on my own and I'm looking forward to posting them.

Superb Vanilla Cupcakes

I've been working on creating a great vanilla cupcake for some time now. I've nailed chocolate but have had a lot of trouble getting a vanilla cupcake that wasn't sub-par. Finally (with help) I made a batch of perfect vanilla cupcakes. I do say that this is by far my favorite cupcake for summer. Its versatile and easy to make. For this first batch I made a delicious blueberry cream cheese frosting that was thick and creamy, contrasting the light airy cupcake. I also topped the cupcake with a few blueberry's as a garnish.

The cupcake is really simple and frankly pretty amazing.

Oven at 375

- 1 cup sugar
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 1/3 cup almond meal
- 1/2 cup oil
- 1 cup cold water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon almond extract

Mix all ingredients well

add;

- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Mix again and bake for 22 minutes!

I usually rave about most of the cupcakes I make because cupcakes are a kind of crack for me, but these cakes are truly fantastic, especially with the blueberry.

Chocolate Coconut Cupcakes

These were an experimental batch that turned out really well. I used this killer chocolate cake recipe that I've used a few times in the past. I substituted half the water for coconut milk to add a little extra depth to the cupcakes. The cupcakes turned out pretty good, I left them in the oven for an extra few minutes and a few of them developed that hard cupcake top.

The frosting was a simple coconut butter cream frosting that I topped off with some toasted coconut.

Tangerine Zest and Oreo® Cookie Cupcakes

I had an order last weekend for a few Tangerine and Oreo® Cupcakes, they turned out really well. I took the leftovers to a family event. I got good reviews from everyone.

Vanilla Blueberry Gluten Free Cupcakes

I got a special request from a friend to make gluten free cupcakes for an party, we decided on doing a vanilla cupcake with blueberry frosting. Thankfully the frosting was already gluten free. For this cake I used the standard gluten free recipe that you can find in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, this book has a lot of good base recipes that you can build off of. For the frosting I used a standard buttercream recipe;

1/2 cup margerine
1/2 cup shortening
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 of freshly blended blueberries

You can substitute 1/4 of blueberries for soy milk, juice, booze or whatever to get your frosting to compliment your cake flavor.

I really liked this combination, the blueberries were delicious and the cake was even better.

Order

Last week I made two dozen cupcakes for an order, I thought they turned out pretty...

Green Tea Reckoning

Baking again after a brief stint in Vancouver B.C. We walked into a few cupcake stores while wandering the city, not impressed. There's a local chain up there that has sub-par cakes that sit out all day long. Gross. I didn't see much in the way of vegan options in Vancouver, but I was only there for a few days.

I adore green tea, I think it works great in so many things, like cupcakes. I had my first green tea cupcake in Boston a year and a half ago, it was fantastic! The recipe came from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World (yes I'm still linking to Amazon® I'm not convinced that they purposely rigged their site to censor poof-oriented things) which is a fantastic book that everyone should own. And I do recommend finding it in a local bookstore, given the economy local is the way to go. I've made the book version several times and I wanted to put my own twist on the recipe.

Matcha (ground green tea) is notoriously expensive, especially the pure stuff. Always make sure that the ingredients read as green tea ONLY, a lot of company's out there mix in sugar and filler junk. You can Google it and find online companies or just go down to your local Asian Market, it tends to be cheaper there.










I use about 4 teaspoons of matcha per batch of cupcakes and they always turn out with a good green tea flavor. For my experimental batch I switched it up and used my favorite base of coconut milk and flax seed and modified a few other recipe aspects and came out with a very moist and delicious cupcake. I topped with a Green Tea Glaze that you can find in 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World'.

I'm working on a recipe for Green Tea Biscotti, hopefully I'll get it made and posted shortly.

Blood Orange Cupcakes With a Blood Orange Glaze

I saw some Blood Oranges at Wholefoods® and thought "I bet those would make great cupcakes". Turns out I was right, the Blood Orange flavor was amazing. I've never had Blood Oranges before this recipe, since then I've bought them twice. Apparently Blood Oranges are fairly new to North America which might be why I've never had one (most places don't carry them). The folks over at O'Biolla have this to say about Blood Oranges;

Blood oranges are known for their high vitamin C, potassium, carotene and dietary fiber contents, all of which have extensive health benefits. It has been well documented in the nutritional press that consuming several daily servings of fruits and vegetables, combined with three servings of low-fat dairy products, are effective in lowering blood pressure and other heart-related disease risks, while contributing to overall general good health and disease resistance.

I tried something new with these cupcakes and cut a hole out of them to fill with chocolate, then topped with a Blood Orange glaze and orange zest. Overall the cupcake turned out really well, but I think in the future I'll hold off on adding the chocolate inside, it distracted from the orange flavor. Or I'll fill the cupcakes with glaze and top with a orange butter cream.

Chai Cardamom Cupcakes with Cashew Buttercream

The poll winning cupcake! And as it turns out one of my all time favorites, but then again a lot of these are my favorites. I knew off the bat that I would extract the chai flavor black tea, I decided to use coconut milk heated up a little on the stove and then steeped four tea bags for 5-6 minutes. Soy milk would work better for this, but I really love to richness that coconut milk brings to a cupcake. After I let the coconut milk cool a little I added a tablespoon of flax seed and allowed the tea mixture to sit for about ten minutes before proceeding with adding the rest of the wet ingredients. While I wait for this process I get the dry goods shifted and ready to add.

Once the cupcakes were finished I ran into a little bit of an internal debate on what to top them with... A spicy chai buttercream, a cardamom buttercream, a powdersugar glaze or somthing else... I settled on cashews. I mixed cashew butter with a vegan buttercream frosting and it turned out awesome. It looked dense but turned out to be light a delicious. I topped them with broken cashews, next time I'll grind them down into finer pieces.