Chocolate Orange Ginger Happiness

The best part about this cupcake is eating this cupcake.  This cupcake has depth of flavors and a lot of dimension.  The orange really comes through with the chocolate but the ginger is more subtle and you would think it would be really gingery with 2 tablespoons of fresh ginger but it really sits nicely in the corner.  Nobody put baby in a corner but ginger is happy to be there in this cupcake.  This is one of those cupcakes that can impress.  It was impressive just eating it and realizing that we made it.

The recipe makes 12-48 cupcakes depending on the size of the tin and the frosting is enough with a little to put in a bowl and eat with a spoon like a fine bisque.   We made 24 cupcakes in a medium size normal cupcake tin, not 12 cupcakes in a tin large enough to feed Bigfoot and his family only. This is a share all recipe that everyone needs to make.  It's not hard and really makes you feel like you should own your own bakery.

Vegan Chocolate Ginger Orange Cupcakes


3 cups of flour (unbleached if you have it - if your like us then bleached is fine)
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons baking soda
1 teaspoon of salt
2 cups natural cane sugar
1 cup of water
2/3 cup of cold fresh brewed coffee (brew and refrigerate worked for us)
1 cup of oil (we used sunflower)
2 tablespoons of vanilla extract
4 tablespoons of grated 'orange peel (we used the zest from two whole medium oranges)
1 tablespoon of orange juice (if you have a citrus press you can use the oranges as mentioned above)
4 tablespoons of cider vinegar

Preheat the oven to 375.  Mix your dry ingredients and whisk to combine.  Add water, oil, vanilla, orange juice, ginger and orange peel.  Mix to combine.  Add vinegar and stir quickly to combine.  It will be foamy and lighter in color.  DON'T FREAK OUT, like we did.  Once the mix turns back to a darker color then you know everything is now okay and you have incorporated all of the vinegar and not ruined these mix.  Pour into your cupcakes tins and bake for 15 minutes.  Let them cool prior to icing.

Fra-Fra-Frosting


1 cup of vegan margarine
4 cups of powdered sugar
1 tablespoon of vanilla
1 tablespoon of orange juice (feel free to use the juice from your oranges from above)
4 tablespoons of soymilk
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
a pinch of salt

Blend the margarine in a mixer until creamy, add in powdered sugar a little at a time until combined (we did it in three additions).  Add remaining ingredients until creamy and amazing.

Guess what? You're ready to put the frosting on that cupcake.

This is a cupcake for all occasions.  We found that a little orange zest on top added a little zing of flavor.  To give your cupcakes the spiked out party til the break of dawn look just use a knife to spread the frosting and then in a snap of the wrist motion tap the frosting and pull back...ummm yeah just like that.

Listen to some awesome music, Mariachi El Bronx was this evening's background, and you'll find that you won't need a Yankee candle when you are baking these cupcakes.  Your house will smell amazing.

Tip of the day: when someone yells duck, always do it.

Until next time sugar kisses and cupcake dreams.

Chocolate Cherry Brownie Pie: Like Your Mama Makes

Cupcake numero dos.  We took a week off from baking in observance of the miserable loss of the Steelers in the Super Bowl.  We were mourning and didn't feel much like baking and figured we didn't want the saltiness from our tears to interfere with the sweetness of our cupcakes.  Well we are over that loss and back in the kitchen. 

Tonight we made a chocolate cherry brownie pie cupcake.  We used the vegan (basic) chocolate cupcake recipe and added our own touches to make the cupcake taste a little more like cherries.  This was all done with adding a little bit of extra almond extract.  A good tip if you want to have your chocolate cupcakes taste a little like cherries.  We also added melted vegan butter in lieu oil and the cake itself turned out a little bit more like a brownie, which caused a pleasant surprise and added the brownie texture to our cupcake.  Neither one of us are upset.

Megan had another filling explosion and but nothing that we couldn't salvage.  I stood back because I could hear the pressure building and knew it was going to happen but couldn't stop it.  No major disasters other than that.

The cupcake filling was cherry pie filling - a bag of frozen cherries, 3 tsp. of sugar and the juice of one lemon.  It simmered for an hour to reduce and made a nice amount of filling for about 12 cupcakes.

The frosting was a cream cheese frosting with a hint of fresh cherry and drizzled with a chocolate ganache. 

The frosting was 1/2 cup of vegan butter, 1/2 cup of cream cheese, 4 cups of powdered sugar, a splash of almond extract - literally a splash because a little goes a long way - and about 2 tblsp. of cherry reduction taken from the pie filling as mentioned earlier.

The ganache was made by boiling 3/4 cup of coconut creamer and pouring this over a half pound of semi-sweet chocolate chips and stirring until melted.  Wow is this good and could be used for so many different things including eating like soup.

We ate these cupcakes with a fork.  They are delicious and m***t (I refuse to say that word and it rhymes with hoist) but they really are that word.  The brownie texture is a-ma-zing! A simple substitution of butter for oil (vegan butter) really made a lot of difference texturally.

They were a success! Yum!

Tip of the day: always listen to your mother, she's right.

Until next time sugar kisses and cupcakes dreams.

Strawberry Lemonade Cupcake: Drink it in

On one dark and stormy night in San Diego...oh wait, it was all sunshine and cupcakes.  Two girls, Megan and Mo got together and began what will be an epic cupcake experiment.

Here we are on our maiden cupcake experiment, voyage number one.  We got together as friends and found that we both have a love of creating, baking and tasting cupcakes.  We want to share it with you now so every time we bake, you win.  Tonight we decided to try a strawberry lemonade cupcake.  This consists of a vanilla cupcake with a hint of lemon, lemon gelee filling and fresh strawberry icing, which turned out more like a gelee as well.  We will start to share recipes with you when we perfect them as for now we will share the photos and you will have to trust us when we say they are ridiculously delicious.

The cupcakes themselves came out a little overdone and after an icing explosion and a few test cupcakes we made notes on how to make it better.  We are learning how to use tools besides knives and spoons to make our cupcakes amazing.  Megan learned that when there is something that is clogging the tip of the icing dispenser to clean it out before you just keep squeezing.  (that's what she said). 

So for now we leave you with cupcakes dreams and sugar kisses.

Tip of the day: Don't put metal in the microwave.

For now, bake on.