Monday, March 21, 2011

Vegan Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes and other treats

Hey there cupcake lovers! =)

Oh gosh, I can't believe what a bad blogger I've been! I had this post and the almond joy one ready to go last month before vacation, but never finished...sorry. hehe. Anyhow, vacation was great and that will be my next blog annnnd my in progress experiment Li Hing Pineapple Cupcakes!

Anyhow, here is the post about vegan cuppies

So, today was my first attempt at vegan cupcake baking. Well, thats not entirely true...I've baked many vegan muffins and have done some cakes vegan (without people knowing...shhhh!) but have added other things to frostings or fillings to make it not entirely vegan. So, yes, todays cupcake was entirely vegan!

Here is it, a chocolate raspberry vegan cupcake!:

So I also learned tonight what the difference between refined and unrefined coconut oil is. I have unrefined and I guess the difference is that unrefined still has the coconut scent and slight taste, so I hope those who enjoy it tomorrow are coconut fans! I also had a bit of trouble working with the frosting. I made it THREE times! Argh! The first time I guess I added too much water which caused it to slowwwwwllly drip down. It was not a pretty site. Second time I got scared and added too little water which caused the frosting to taste like a glob of sugar. Third times a charm and its perfect. At least I'm a bit experienced now so I know what to do now. I'll let you all know what the verdict is later on.

*Frosting was so thick and globby in my opinion. You only need just a tad but it looks so pretty and complete when its frosted. hehe. Some folks ate it all up so I guess it was good heh.

I also made a set of S'mores cupcakes...and yes I used half the batter for these and half for the raspberry cupcakes so it is an example of my secret vegan baking ;). I always enjoy making these, mostly because I like using my torch to toast the tops :D

Ohh and I wanted to share my new cupcake iphone case! I ordered it from Ebay from Hong Kong and its not the best quality but hey it was $2 hehe. And next to it, is my treen-ified square reader =)



Almond Joy and Rocky Road Cupcakes!

Hi Blogger land!

One of my favorite candies growing up was Almond Joy...come on, i know all of you know the jingle "sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't!" =)

Below is a picture of it for those of you that don't know what candy I'm referring to:

Oh and here is a picture of Mahalo, the healthier and vegan! almond joy equivalent, I love it!:

Anyhow, I've had so many different ideas lately for cupcakes but I was just so busy! I was excited that I had a reason to make some cupcakes; for my friend Cat's birthday. She mentioned she liked chocolate and fruit so I thought these would do well. I made her two kinds actually, half rocky road and half almond joy.


The Almond Joy cupcakes turned out good, although I may try a different take next time around. I mixed in shredded coconut to the chocolate batter and folded in sliced almonds. I topped it with vanilla frosting and sliced almonds and some coconut. The cupcake was good but it didn't remind me enough of an Almond Joy. Next time, I think I' going to put in chunkier pieces of almond and fill the cupcake with a sticky coconut mixture, so it'll be more similar to the real deal. Ps, yay for instagram for making my phone pictures looks kind of awesome!


The Rocky Road cupcakes were good too, it was a chocolate cake with almonds topped with marshmallow frosting and sliced almonds. I just wish I found mini marshmallows...you know, the ones that come in some hot cocoa mixes? I wanted to throw some of those in there, along with almond chunks and not slices. Still tasted like the real thing though. =)



Thanks for reading!

xo,

Treen