Cupcakes | Suburban Vegan

Posts Tagged ‘Cupcakes’

25 Apr

DC Cupcake Tour

Posted by Kristen in travel. Tagged: Cakelove, Cupcakes, DC, Georgetown Cupcake, Sprinkles, Sticky Fingers. Leave a Comment

I’m pretty sure the only vegan cupcakes in McHenry County come from my kitchen. But maybe there’s another vegan baker or two out there. It’s a different story in DC, where even regular bakeries have a vegan option.

1. Cakelove

First up is Cakelove. Founded by a former lawyer (my role model) Cakelove was baking cupcakes before they became popular. I was a big fan in my pre-vegan days, but unfortunately the deliciousness does not transfer over to vegan baked goods. This was an embarrassment to vegan cupcakes everywhere. I got the chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting. The frosting was good. It wasn’t very sweet, nor was it very chocolate-y. The lack of sweetness wasn’t a problem, but chocolate frosting should taste chocolate-y. The cake part was just dreadful. Very dense. I cut off the bottom and ate the frosting with a tiny bit of cake. At $4.20 a cupcake (more than a regular cupcake and the most expensive of all the bakeries), this was a terrible deal.

2. Sticky Fingers
No trip to DC is complete without a trip to Columbia Heights for Sticky Fingers. I stuck with the plain vanilla. It was delicious and confirmed that I am excellent at following directions. My cupcakes taste just like it. The cupcake was moist, the frosting was sweet and there was a perfect frosting to cake ratio. It’s almost not fair to have other bakeries competing against Sticky Fingers for best vegan cupcake, but not including Sticky Fingers would be wrong. Plain cupcakes are $3; a little more for something fancy.

3. Sprinkles
Sprinkles and Georgetown Cupcake are less than 1/2 a mile from each other. They both have TV connections. Sprinkles was founded by Cupcake Wars judge Candace Nelson and Georgetown Cupcake has its own reality show on TLC. I took H with me, because I couldn’t eat 2 cupcakes all by myself (after eating Sticky Fingers for lunch that is). Both just have one vegan option. Sprinkles has the same red velvet flavor every day. This cupcake is huge! Probably the size of two Georgetown cupcakes. The cake was moist and the cream cheese frosting was the perfect sweetness although a little firm because it probably came right from the refrigerator. However, it had a strong coconut taste that I didn’t care for (I am not a big fan of coconut). H liked it though. Cupcakes are $3.50

4. Georgetown Cupcake
Last but not least, the extremely popular Georgetown Cupcake. Georgetown Cupcake offers three vegan favors on a rotating schedule: apple cinnamon, cranberry spice and carrot cake. Fortunately, we were not there on a carrot cake day (vegetables should not be a star player in a dessert!) We got to try the cranberry spice with cream cheese frosting and it was delicious. The cake was moist; the flavor was interesting; the frosting was sweet and soft; and the cupcakes are pretty. They are small, but only $2.75. I do love frosting, but the frosting to cake ratio was 1:1. Other than that, the cupcake rivals Sticky Fingers. Of course, the lack of variety knocks Georgetown Cupcake down a notch.

Rankings:
1. Sticky Fingers – cupcake perfection
2. Georgetown Cupcake – a tad too much frosting
3. Sprinkles – due to the coconut taste. However, H thought Sprinkles was better than Georgetown Cupcake
4. Cakelove – gross

13 Feb

The Sweetest Reward

Posted by Kristen in Baking, Cookbook Recipe. Tagged: Cupcakes, Sticky Fingers. 1 Comment

H wanted to bring in doughnuts to thank the staff for perfect December numbers. I was like, no, you’re married to a wannabe baker; you’ll bring cupcakes.

Vanilla cake with vanilla frosting
Chocolate cake with mocha frosting
Chocolate seltzer cupcakes with chocolate ganache, banana frosting and caramelized bananas (a Cupcake Wars winning recipe)

Unfortunately, H takes a somewhat hilly, pothole-filled road to get to one of the hospitals. We learned that ganache is not as steady of a surface as cake and caramelized bananas can be a little heavy; by the time got to the hospital, some of the frosting was sliding off the side. If I do make these again, I will wait to add the frosting and bananas until I get to the site.

20 Dec

Coconut Peanut Butter-filled Chocolate Cupcakes

Posted by Kristen in Baking. Tagged: Cupcakes, Earth Balance, Holiday. 1 Comment

My second entry into the Earth Balance baking contest.

Chocolate cupcakes filled with coconut peanut butter frosting and covered with ganache.

Ingredients
Cupcakes:
3/4 cup Earth Balance Soymilk
1/4 cup brewed coffee, cooled
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon coffee extract
1/2 cup sweetened cocoa powder
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Coconut Peanut Butter filling
2 tablespoons Earth Balance Buttery Sticks
2 tablespoons Earth Balance Shortening
1/2 cup Earth Balance Coconut Peanut Butter (creamy or follow directions below)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 tablespoons Earth Balance Soymilk
2 1/2 cups confectioners sugar

Ganache
4 1/2 ounces dark chocolate
1/2 tablespoon Earth Balance Shortening
2-4 tablespoons maple syrup
1/2 cup Shredded coconut (optional)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 and line muffin pan.
2. Whisk together Earth Balance soymilk, sugar, oil, and vanilla and coffee extracts.
3. In a separate large bowl, whisk together cocoa powder, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Make an indention in the middle of the dry ingredients and add wet ingredients.
4. When ingredients are just combined, add apple cider vinegar. Barely combine vinegar; you want there to be streaks throughout the batter.
5. Fill muffin tins 2/3 of the way and bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
6. For the coconut peanut butter filling: Add coconut peanut butter to a food processor and blend until creamy. It must be perfectly creamy or else that one little nut will find its way to the tip of your pastry bag.
7. In an electric mixer, combine shortening, buttery sticks and creamy coconut peanut butter. Add confectioners sugar, vanilla and 1 tablespoon of soymilk at a time. Mix on high for a couple of minutes.
8. When cupcakes are completely cooled, poke a hole in the center of each cupcake (I use the end of a chopstick). Fill a pastry bag with the peanut butter frosting, and fill cupcakes with as much as you can get in.
9. For the ganache: in a microwave safe dish, melt chocolate for 1 minute. Remove and stir until it is all melted, add shortening. Depending on how bitter your chocolate is, add 2-4 tablespoons of maple syrup until you get the desired sweetness. Cover each cupcake with ganache. Sprinkle shredded coconut, if desired.

17 Dec

Eggnog Cupcakes with Spiked Eggnog Frosting

Posted by Kristen in Baking, Holiday. Tagged: Christmas, Cupcakes. Leave a Comment

This is the first of two recipes I entered in the Earth Balance baking contest.

Ingredients

Eggnog Cupcakes
1 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup Earth Balance Buttery Sticks
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup Earth Balance Soynog
1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Spiked Eggnog Frosting
1/4 cup Earth Balance Shortening
1/4 cup Earth Balance Buttery Sticks
4 cups confectioners sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons Earth Balance Soynog
1 tablespoon rum
12 cinnamon sticks

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 and line muffin pan.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; set aside.
In an electric mixer, cream together 1/2 cup Earth Balance buttery stick and sugar (brown & white). Add soynog and vanilla extract.
In two batches, add flour to butter mixture until just combined.
Fill muffin tins 2/3 of the way and bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean
For the frosting: In an electric mixer, combine shortening and buttery sticks until fluffy. Add two cups of confectioners sugar, vanilla and 1 tablespoon of soynog. Add remaining confectioners sugar, remaining soynog and rum. Mix on high for several minute until light and fluffy.
When cupcakes are completely cooled, pipe frosting and garnish with a cinnamon stick.

13 May

Cake Decorating 2

Posted by Kristen in Baking. Tagged: cakes, Cupcakes, MCC. 6 Comments

I finished Cake Decorating 2 last week. It was a lot of fun and I’m always looking for an excuse to bake and decorate a cake.

Refreshing my skills from Cake Decorating 1: loop border, shell border and roses.

Fondant class – the boxed stuff tastes terrible, but it sure looks pretty. Some time I will try making my own.

Final class

I made cupcakes for a friend’s bake sale to try mums. You can tell I started with purple. I gradually got better by the last pink flower.

I also made coffee-flavored cupcakes with espresso creme filling and buttercream frosting and chocolate cupcakes with chocolate peanut butter frosting.

And finally, the cake. I spent a little too much time on the mums cupcakes, so I was rushed on the top, but I like how the borders turned out.

The cake was a layer of chocolate, coffee and vanilla with espresso cream in the middle.

12 Apr

Easter Review

Posted by Kristen in Baking, Holiday. Tagged: candy, Cupcakes, Easter. Leave a Comment

I had my second order of cupcakes last week- one & a half dozen Easter cupcakes. There would be a mix of kids and adults, so I did half as baby farm animals – pigs, chicks & sheep. Aren’t they cute?

The adult cupcakes were a mixture of things. I made pink & purple white chocolate eggs to go on top of frosting grass

I love these flower cupcake liners. I topped two of them with chocolate frosting and a white chocolate egg.

The other two had lemon buttercream and a spring mix sprinkles.

And finally, chocolate frosting with roses.

They barely fit in the box.

Easter brunch: traditional English breakfast according to Alicia Silverstone in The Kind Diet.

Roasted potatoes and tomatoes, tempeh bacon & Field Roast Sausage, spinach, mushrooms, and baked beans.

Easter Dinner from Vegan Holiday Kitchen: Spring Vegetable Tart and Lemony Spinach and Chickpea Soup

And finally, this is what the vegan Easter bunny would bring:

A dairy-free milk chocolate egg

Confectioner’s glaze-free jelly beans

Sweet & Sara peeps

Homemade chocolate bunnies

Chocolate Peanut Butter eggs

28 Mar

Cupcake Decorating Class

Posted by Kristen in Baking, Decorating. Tagged: bake sale, Cupcakes, Dandies. 1 Comment

Last Friday I took a Cupcake decorating class at MCC. I brought some of my own cookies, honey-free graham crackers, candies and Dandies marshmallows and I tried to make everything vegan. But there were a couple techniques I tried using melted white chocolate, which are not vegan.

Sheep made with Dandies marshmallows

Using my skills from last week’s cake decorating class by making a rose

The flower is not vegan, but I’ll be trying this technique with some vegan white chocolate soon.

This was one of my favorite cupcakes- hyacinths using toothpicks and 2 Dandies marshmallows

Combining two of my favorite things: shoes & cupcakes

The Easter bunny with jelly beans and Dandies marshmallows

And finally, a fish with jelly beans.

Suburban Chicago Vegetarian Meetup Group’s Vegan Bake Sale

There was another bake sale on Sunday. I’ve made so many cupcakes recently with lots of left-over frosting. I used this opportunity to use up that frosting and practice some of the things I learned at class on Friday. I tried to make chocolate peanut butter eggs, which didn’t come out as pretty; the recipe needs a little tweaking.

13 Mar

Happy Pi(e) Day & How to Ship Cupcakes

Posted by Kristen in Baking. Tagged: Cupcakes, Holidays that are awesome, Sticky Fingers Cookbook. Leave a Comment

The Challenge: ship “pie” cupcakes to my dad, a math teacher, in Birmingham, Alabama without messing up the frosting. I found this solution from Beantown Baker and it worked pretty well.

Using mason jars: Cut cupcakes in half and put frosting in between. To avoid it turning into a jar of frosting, I piped frosting around the edges. The idea is to get frosting to ooze out so the cupcake sticks to the jar.

I added a dab of frosting to the bottom, too.

Jam the cupcake in the jar.

Mason jars are heavy and I didn’t think they were necessary for the Boston Cream Pie cupcakes. For those, I used plastic containers. Again, I cut the cupcakes in half. Then I added a full layer of pastry cream.

When all the jars are filled, you are ready to decorate.

For the Boston cream pie cupcakes, I just topped with ganache and put them in the freezer for about an hour and a half without the lid on. When the chocolate is hard, you can press on the lid. It worked perfectly. On one cupcake I had to press down pretty hard, but the others were perfectly snug.

For the Raspberry Pie cupcakes I used raspberry flavored buttercream and made dots of “raspberries” and then did a “pie crust”:

This cupcake is not falling out.

Wrap the mason jars in paper, throw in an ice pack and wrap with insulation:

The result: delicious. The best vanilla cake I’ve ever made. I’m pretty sure this was the recipe for our wedding cake, and I’m so happy I can make that now. I am loving the Sticky Fingers cookbook.

The raspberry pie cupcakes were a bit messy out of the jar. Probably best to eat them straight from the jar with a fork.

7 Mar

Sheriff Cupcakes

Posted by Kristen in Baking, Vegan with a Vengeance. Tagged: Birthday, Cupcakes. Leave a Comment

For my boss’s birthday, I made chocolate creme-filled cupcakes with chocolate fudge frosting and decorated them with Sheriff’s badges from Fancy Flours. The chocolate cake and filling is from Vegan with a Vengeance (the fauxtess cakes) and it was topped with a variation of the chocolate frosting recipe from The Kind Life.

5 Feb

Groundhog Day Party

Posted by Kristen in Baking, Cookbook Recipe, Entertaining, Holiday, Party Vegan. Tagged: Cupcakes, Groundhog, Party. 2 Comments

Menu for the Second Annual Groundhog Day Party

Crackers and veggies with sun-dried tomato hummus and cilantro hummus
Chips and salsa
Mixed green and avocado salad with cilantro-cumin vinaigrette
Brazilian Collard Greens
Citrus Rum BBQ tempeh sandwiches with coleslaw
Mango black beans with rice
Peanut butter bites
Gluten-free blueberry crumb cake
Groundhog cupcakes