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Basic Chocolate Vegan Cupcakes w/ Chocolate Frosting

Basic Chocolate Vegan Cupcakes

Ingredients: (makes 12 cupcakes)

• 1 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar (C&H ½sugar, 1/2stevia)
• 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, chocolate extract, or more vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder, Dutch-processed or regular
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and line a muffin pan with paper or foil liners.
2. Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar in a large bowl, and set aside for a few minutes to curdle. Add the sugar, oil, vanilla extract, and other extract, if using, to the soy milk mixture and beat until foamy. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add in two batches to wet ingredients and beat until no large lumps remain (a few tiny lumps are OK).
3. Pour into liners, filling 3/4 of the way. Bake 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

Chocolate Mousse Frosting (or just chocolate mousse)

        Ingredients:

• 1 can coconut milk
• 1/4 cup plus 1 T cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• sweetner to taste (I used a little stevia, but any dry sweetener will do.)

Preparation:

• Open the coconut milk, and leave the can (or transfer to a bowl) uncovered in the fridge overnight. (Don’t shake the can before opening.) It should get very, very thick. (If it doesn’t, you’ve gotten a bad can that won’t work for the recipe. I highly recommend Thai Kitchen, or especially Thai Kitchen Organic.) Once thick, transfer to a bowl (you can opt to leave out the watery bit at the bottom of the can, if you want it even thicker) and whip in your cocoa, vanilla, and sweetener with a fork, or even beaters if you want to be fancy. (For the photos on this page, I didn’t use beaters. But I did pipe the mousse out using an icing tip.) Stored uncovered in the fridge, the mixture gets even thicker.

Nutrition Facts: (1 cupcake no frosting) Cupcakes: Calories 81; Carbs 24g; Fat 1g; Protein 2g; Sugar 13g;

        Frosting (12 servings) Calories 63; carbs 3g; Fat 6g; Protein 1g; Sugar 0g; sodium 8g