29. Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes

I’m finally settled in my new apartment, all the IKEA furniture has been built, the internet sorted, the kitchen reorganised and the oven broken in. Let’s bake.

I’d like to say I chose to make vegan cupcakes for a decent reason, but that would be an utter lie. I made vegan cupcakes because I didn’t have any butter in, so… still counts? Turns out that you can use olive oil instead of butter, swapping one fat for another. It gives you a more liquid batter, but that’s A ok. Still gives you a solid cake. The olive oil makes the chocolate taste richer than it actually is, which is extremely nice to be honest. My boyfriend had some and said they were great. Didn’t even know they were vegan. So not bad all around.

Wasn’t a big fan of the icing, but probably didn’t help that I didn’t wait for my buns to cool completely before icing. My icing melted just a little lot. Nevermind! Still tasty.

Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

• 280g self-raising flour

• 200g sugar

• 25g cocoa powder

• 150ml olive oil

• 300ml water

• pinch of salt

• vanilla extract (to taste)

• 200g vegetable spread

• 350g icing sugar

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.

2. Combine the self-raising flour, sugar, cocoa powder and salt in a bowl.

3. Add in the olive oil, vanilla extract and water.

4. Line a cupcake tray and fill the cases about 2/3rds full.

5. Bake for 15-18 minutes until they spring back.

6. Mix together the non-dairy spread and icing sugar in a bowl to make an icing. Flavour with vanilla extract if desired.

7. Pipe your icing onto your COOLED buns and enjoy!