lip-smacking good: vegan carrot cake cupcakes

Carrot Cake Cupcake Chickadees

One of my favorite desserts to make is carrot cake.  I have a recipe passed down to me from my mom, who got it from my grandmother.  It is, hands down, the best carrot cake I've ever had and it never ceases to receive compliments from everyone.

I'm trying to use fewer dairy products in my baking and when I eat at home, and I wanted to attempt a healthier version of the cake and cream cheese frosting so I modified the recipe in several ways to create vegan carrot cake cupcakes for Easter this year.  While the frosting was a little less fluffy than it's non-vegan counterpart, it tasted as good and everyone was surprised when I told them (after they ate a few cupcakes) that the recipe was vegan.

cake ingredients:

1 and 1/2 C wheat flour
1 and 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 and 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup agave nectar (substituted for 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar)
3 tbsp whole ground flaxseed
7 tbsp water
1 and 1/8 C vegetable oil
1 and 1/2 C grated carrot (finely as possible)
8 and 1/4 oz can pineapple
3/4 C chopped walnuts

frosting ingredients

8 tbsp vegan butter or margerine (softened)
1 8 oz pack of vegan cream cheese
3 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup coconut (optional)
yellow, green and orange food coloring

To make the cake:
Mix first 5 ingredients well with mixer.
In a separate small bowl, combine flaxseed and water and stir until the mixture starts to have an egg-like consistency. 
Add flaxseed mixture and remaining ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well with spoon.
Oil cake pans and bake at 350 for approx 35 - 40 min (less time for mini muffins - check after about 20 minutes)

To make the frosting:

Mix together well with mixer.
For extra frosting to cake ratio, do one and a half this frosting recipe and you'll have plenty for the cake and some leftover :)

Enjoy!

lip-smacking good: red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Red Velvet Cupcakes in some adorable silicone footed cups given to me by a coworker

Red Velvet Cake is one of my favorite desserts.  I realize its just chocolate cake with red food dye, but there's a quality about it, a je ne c'est quoi feel to red velvet that sets it apart from chocolate cake.  It could be, too, that the cream cheese frosting helps a bit.

A while ago, I decided to try my hand at red velvet cake from scratch, and also made my own cream cheese frosting (a 3rd generation, no fail frosting recipe that will have people talking for weeks).  I've also made this frosting when baking sugar cookies and carrot cake.

I used this recipe from Martha Stewart to make the red velvet cake, and ended up making regular and bite-sized cupcakes.

Mini Red Velvet Cupcakes

Then, to make the frosting:

1 stick butter (softened)
1 8 oz pkg cream cheese (softened)
1 lb powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 C coconut (optional.  makes it harder to dye the icing, and some people are not huge fans of coconut.  the frosting is delicious either way)
 

Mix together well with mixer. For extra frosting to cake ratio, do one and a half this frosting recipe and you'll have plenty for the cake and some leftover (for spreading on graham crackers, regular crackers, sugar cookies, fruit, cardboard, or eating by the spoonful).  I decided to color some of the frosting using some neon pink food coloring I got from the grocery store.  Happy baking!