Sugar coma yeah yeah
Happy mediums? They are not my thing. That explains not only this blog, I suspect, but also my propensity to think that 15+ miles in a hilly city is a reasonable distance to travel by bicycle. That explains why I passed out on a book at 8:45 last night, because making 3 batches of cupcakes is not, in fact, that exhausting.
These are delicious cupcakes, incidentally. Delicious.
This was a delightfully dysfunctional sort of day, where everything goes slightly and hilariously wrong. For example, three trips to the grocery store because we kept forgetting things we would need. We also attempted to use the acetic acid produced by kombucha to curdle the milk, which was kind of awesome, even if it didn’t work overly well. Exhaustion breeds confusion, apparently.
The first batch of cupcakes ended up being chocolate peanut butter fudge because we forgot to fold in the ginger and I popped truffles onto the top to make them more exciting. They’re basically another iteration of the cupcakes I made with KVH, but they are still remarkably delicious. Also, watch this music video, because I like it. Return to Cookie Mountain is a good name for an album.
Um. Anyways. Deliciousness.
The second cupcakes we made were incredibly light and fluffy peanut butter cupcakes. I neglected to bring ground flaxseed, so they are VERY crumbly, but still very delicious. And the little bit of dark chocolate ganache on top makes for a nice counterpoint.
Ingredients!
3/4 cup soy milk (or real milk, depending on how into vegan cupcakes you are)
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup peanut butter (chunky or smooth, all up to you)
1/3 cup canola oil
2 tablespoons molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons ground flaxseed
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
Preheat the oven, line the tins, yadda yadda.
Curdle the soy milk in a small bowl or container by mixing the vinegar and the milk.
In a significantly larger bowl, cream together the peanut butter, oil, sugar, molasses, vanilla and flaxseeds until everything looks pretty even. We didn’t use the flaxseeds or the molasses, but they help with texture and whatnot, so I’d wager you should use them.
Anyhow, in a different bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
When the often declares it’s readiness to bake (mine beeps demandingly), add the flour mixture to the wet ingredient bowl, and mix until just combined. Then fill each liner 2/3 full, and bake for 22-25 minutes.
aren't they pretty?
For the chocolate ginger cupcakes, we used my now-standard chocolate cupcake recipe, which is adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. Hooray!
1/2 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 cup boiling water
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup chopped candied ginger
I’m not going to lie: I’m just copying and pasting from another chocolate cupcake post right now because I am too lazy to think of clever things to say about this, other than–GANACHE–which isn’t actually clever so much as an inside joke.
For starters, heat your oven to 350 degrees, line your cupcake tins, and mix the cocoa powder with the boiling water, and set aside to cool.
At the same time, mix the milk with the vinegar, and set aside to curdle.
Mix together the sugar and the oil (if you decide to use margarine or butter, make sure to use 1/2 cup), and add the curdled soy milk and vanilla.
In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt.
Add the cooled cocoa powder water mixture to the liquid ingredients bowl, and then mix the dry ingredients, and fold in the 1/3 cup of candied ginger.
Fill the cups about 3/4 of the way full, and bake for 17-20 minutes.
candied ginger is such a delicious thing. also, you can see my tea strainer on the left.
Once you top them with ganache, they are beautiful and rich and a little overwhelming.
GANACHE (that’s for you, M.)
2 cups dark chocolate chips
1 to 1 1/2 cups hot (soy) milk
Heat the soy milk until boiling, then pour over the chocolate chips in a heat-proof bowl, and stir until everything is melted and smooth. Then, you get to wait for it to set up, which will take a while. Then you pipe it on, and it is pretty. Hooray!
And then you have a sugar coma and pass out, which is also worthy of a “hooray!”
Gibbsy, over and out.
