Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Good morning everyone.  I hope that you are all having a pleasant weekend.  Last night we had friends over and were going to go see the local fireworks, but by the time we finished eating we decided we didn't want to deal with traffic and stuff so we stayed and hung out.

Our friends that came over have a similar eating style to my boy and I.  Kim has been vegetarian since she was seven, and her husband Jason is a carnivore, much like my boyfriend. So for the boys I made bacon wrapped steak, I spent like 30 minutes in the meat aisle at the store wondering what to buy and how much to buy because I've seen these boys eat like an entire pack of hot dogs plus a few burgers.  Sadly, as most veggies know- finding something easy to cook on the grill is a challenge. So Kim and I ended up with veggie burgers. But to make up for that sad, I got corn on the cob from the farm and made veggie kabobs with zucchini from the farm.  I thought about making home made veggie burgers but instead decided to do cupcakes instead.  Good choice- and that's what I'm going talk about now.

These are delicious easy chocolate cupcakes with a peanut butter cream frosting.  I adapted them from the amazing Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Best book ever! Goes great with a glass of soy milk or a big cup of coffee.

Chocolate Cupcakes:
(makes 12 regular size cupcakes or 24 minis)
Ingredients:

1 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon chocolate extract (optional)
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line cupcake pans with paper liners.
2. Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar and extracts, set aside to curdle a few minutes.
3. Beat together the sugar and oil in a large bowl.  Add in liquid and continue to mix until blended.
4. Add flour, beat together.  Add in cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt and continue to mix until completely blended together.
5. Pour into lines, filling 3/4 of the way. Bake 18-22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the venter comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting.

Peanut Butter Frosting:

The frosting can be tricky.  If you use natural peanut butter that gets really hard in the fridge, be sure to let it stay out so it softens up a bit.  I just opened the jar, so it was a little hard to work with because it is so runny.  If it's too difficult to work with, melting it slightly in the microwave may help a little.
Ingredients:

6 tablespoons vegan margarine, softened
2 tablespoons shortening
2/3 cup creamy peanut butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups coonfectioners' sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
2-3 table spoons soy milk

Directions:

1.  Beat together margarine and shortening until smooth. Add peanut butter and vanilla and continue to smooth.
2.  Beat sugar a little at a time. If it begins getting too thick, start adding soy milk a little at a time. The frosting is really fluffy and yummy, but does have a bit of a crumbly appearance. You're going to want to eat it with a spoon- I did...

Bess was very interested in this frosting.  She was quite the supervisor in this peanut butter prep.

She approved.  

The frosting was a bit melty since it was a fresh jar of peanut butter, so I chilled it while washing the dishes just to make it easier to work with.  The frosting is a weird color, I mean it's peanut butter color, but it looks a little funny. 

Enjoy the deliciousness that are these cupcakes, and keep cool-- Bess knows how to!

Vegan Strawberry Daiquari Cakepops (21+)

Happy July everyone! So I apologize in my lapse in writing. If I am unable to keep up during the summer, not real sure how it's going to go during the school year, but we'll see.  Speaking of school year-- I went to Target yesterday and they have all their back to school stuff- so not ready for that yet. I picked up a couple of items for my room from the $1/ $3 bins, but don't even know what my room looks like so didn't over do it.  This week I'm going to start reviewing my IEPs so some school stuff may be added soon.

So back to summer! One of the enjoyable parts of summer is having a frozen strawberry daiquiri on a hot day, not any of that pre-made sugar water, but using real strawberries.  A couple of weeks ago,  my mom and aunt went strawberry picking and came back with a ton of fresh strawberries.  So cute and tasty.

The sad part is, the season doesn't last to long. So I cut and froze a few knowing I was planning on making these cake pops.  I added a little bit of sugar to them to get them sweet and juicy before freezing them.

For the 4th of July we had a picnic to go to and I was set on making the cake pops. I have a love hate relationship with cake pops.  While they are adorable and delicious, they take forever to make,  mine never come out pretty and perfectly round and beautiful, and I usually get annoyed with them, but I am determined to keep trying-- but I still prefer cupcakes.

All steps can be done in the same day, however it takes a while. My usual way of doing it, is to do step by step over a course of a couple days.  The longer the cake cools, the better it works. If you are short on time, you can use the freezer but make sure the cake balls don't freeze.


Strawberry Daiquiri Cakepops:

Cake:

1 cup sliced strawberries with juice
2 tablespoons white rum
1 teaspoon lime juice
1/2 cup soy milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon strawberry extract (optional)
1/2 teaspoon lime juice (additional)
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a cake pan by greasing the bottom (I used coconut oil, but cooking spray would also work) and lightly adding flour to line it.
2. Use food processor or magic bullet to blend the sliced strawberries, rum and 1 teaspoon of lime juice.

3. In a large bowl, beat together 3/4 cup of the strawberry mixture, soy milk, canola oil, extracts and sugar.  Sift in flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  Mix until batter is smooth.  Pour into prepared cake pan and bake for 20-22 minutes.

4.  Once cake is done, cool in pan until it is cool enough to touch.  Crumble cake into large bowl to cool completely.

For the frosting, you can make a regular butter cream, but I decided to try to make a whipped cream type topping, since it's less sweet and whipped cream on daiquiris seem like they go.

Vegan Whipped Cream Frosting:

Ingredients:

1 can of coconut cream
1/4 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

1. Chill can of coconut cream over night in the fridge, or an hour or so in the freezer. NOTE: Make sure that you don't shake the coconut cream.  By chilling it, the cream will float to the top leaving the oils on the bottom.  I accidentally dropped the can on the way to the fridge and it mixed all together and was too watery.
2.  Blend the coconut cream with electric mixture adding sugar and vanilla until it's fluffy. Using a chilled metal bowl helps.

To Make Cakepops:

1.  Take out crumpled cake.  Add 3 tablespoons of the strawberry/ rum/ lime juice mixture. Blend with electric mixture.
2. Add 1/3 cup of the whipped cream mixture blend together until the mixture is crumbly like a dry cookie dough.  Add more confectioners sugar if needed to thicken, or more cream to make it softer.

4. Spoon out mixture and roll into balls and put onto wax paper.  The color and consistency reminded me more of small meatballs than cake.

5. Chill cake balls while preparing melted chocolate.

Vegan White Cocolate:

It is very difficult to find vegan white chocolate. If you're not vegan or do dairy, you can use the melting wafers to cover it.

I ordered raw cocoa butter from Amazon. Just be sure it is FOOD QUALITY.  You don't want to eat body lotion.  It's expensive but goes a long way.

Ingredients:

1. I used 6 chunks of the raw cocoa butter, added up to about 2 cups dry- 1 cup melted.
2. 1 teaspoon coconut oil
3. 3/4 cup confectioners sugar
4. 1/4 teaspoon vanilla



Directions:

1. Melt cocoa chunks with coconut oil either using double boiler method or microwave. I used the microwave. If using the microwave, stir every 30 seconds or so.
2. Once melted, add vanilla, and mix confectioners sugar one tablespoon at a time to thicken up the chocolate.  I found letting it cool for about 10 minutes on the counter prior to mixing made it a little thicker.
3. When chocolate is at desired consistency, dip cake pop stick into chocolate and then push 2/3 of a way into cake balls. The chocolate works as a glue so they sticks stay.  Let cake balls with sticks cool in the refrigerator for about 5 minutes.
4. Dip cake balls into mix covering completely.  Since this mix is very thin, you'll need 2-3 coats to cover it.  Let chill in the fridge between dippings.
5. If desired, decorate more. I took sparkly blue decorating sugar and a fan brush to add a bit of blue to make them red, white and blue for the holiday.

Like I said, cake pops are a lot of work!  But, they were a huge success. These also make great cupcakes, without all the work of dipping in chocolate.  I was able to make 30 cake pops out of this recipe, or it would make 12 regular size cupcakes, or 24 minis.

Vegan Pina Colada Cupcakes (alcohol free)

So I just got home from meeting with my new department head. As mentioned, I'm a special ed teacher and I got bumped from my cozy high school setting to the madness of middle school. Don't get me wrong- I'm happy I have a job in the district, but I love high school and was just finally getting the hang of it all, and now I'll be starting over in 6th grade in the fall--eep! But, at least I have a smaller case load and actual resource room time with my kids... I will have to stop with the sarcasm tho...

 Ok, so on to the important things-- CUPCAKES! So I made these at the end of the school year at the request of my advisory kids (like a homeroom, but we only met weekly for 30-40 min but I love these kids!) We had a party and when I said I'd bring in cupcakes, some of my girls requested Pina Colada cupcakes so I was like sure, I can do that. Then I realized mine usually include rum, so I'd have to figure out something different.

 So here goes--- Oh,I'd also like to apologize about the pictures. I did this pre-blog days, but really wanted to put something up. I will make it up next week as I have some fabulous ideas in the works for next weekend's picnics.


VEGAN PINA COLADA CUPCAKES (makes 12 cupcakes or 24 minis)

  Ingredients
Cupcakes:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup crushed pineapple (in its own juice)
1 tablespoon juice from pineapple
1 teaspoon lime juice
1/3 cup coconut milk
1/8 cup canola oil
1/8 cup coconut oil (melted)
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla

Frosting:
5 tablespoons vegan margarine-softened (I use Earth Balance)
3 tablespoons shortening
3 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch (optional)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon coconut extract
 1/4 teaspoon lime juice
1/4 cup crushed pineapple
1 tablespoon coconut milk

 To top:
Shredded coconut
Maraschino cherries

Directions:
Cupcakes: 
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cupcake pan with liners
2. Melt the coconut oil. I put it in a small pyrex and microwaved it starting at 30 seconds, but monitor it depending on your microwave.
3. In mixing bowl, mix together the melted coconut oil, canola oil, and sugar. Add the coconut milk, pineapple and juice, lime juice and vanilla. Mix to combine.
4. Add the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix until ingredients are well blended-- there will still be chunks of pineapple.
5. Bake for 23-25 minutes for regular size cupcakes. 18-20 minutes for minis.
6. Cool completely before frosting.

<- cupcakes before they were cooked









Frosting:
 1. Beat the shortening and margarine together until combined well and fluffy. Add sugar a cup at a time, and continue to beat until it is crumbly.
2. Add coconut milk, extracts, lime and pineapple, continue to beat until smooth. Add a bit more cornstarch or sugar if it needs to be less liquidy or more coconut milk if too dry.*
3. Chill until ready to use-- definitely easier to work with after being in the fridge for about an hour. 

*Here's where I kind of fail at measuring. I usually add liquid and powder as needed and don't always pay attention to exactly how much I'm using. This is what I started with, but I ended up adding a little too much pineapple then too much sugar and yeah... I'll try to do better at measuring.

  To assemble:

 After cupcakes have cooled, pipe frosting onto them and then distribute shredded coconut to make them pretty. I cut the maraschino cherries in quarters since I used mini cupcakes and put them on top. Keep chilled for best results. I did have mine out in the classroom all day, and they were fine but if it's hot they will melt. They came out really pretty and tasty! The pictures don't do them justice. I will definitely make the rest much prettier.