For today’s recipe, I’m taking a classic and making it vegan – the humble vanilla cupcake. A fluffy vanilla cupcake topped with a delightful vanilla buttercream – what more could you want?
I though, seeing as its veganuary, why not make a simple yet staple recipe? Vanilla cupcakes are easily one of the most popular cupcakes flavours out there, so it should be available for vegans!
I’ve been testing different recipes and them all ending up with different results but none of them were perfect. Some required oil, others a vegan spread and after a few attempts, I had enough of weird textures and flavours, so I took my own vanilla cupcake recipe and made some minor changes and finally found a recipe that was going to work for me and I’m sharing it with you today!
As with some recipes, they require you to buy bits and pieces you wouldn’t usually use but not with this one, the only thing you’ll need to buy different is some oat milk (that’s my favourite alternative to milk, but feel free to test other types of milk). We use the milk in place of the eggs and it works perfectly in this recipe – trust me.
As always, you should take extra precautions with ingredients and making sure they are fully vegan before you use them!
Anyway, let’s get started, shall we?
Ingredients:
Cupcakes:
175g Vegan spread (I used PURE, its vegan and gluten free – available at Heron frozen foods stores).
175g Granulated sugar.
175ml Oat milk (you can try other alternatives, I haven’t so can’t recommend any).
1 tsp Vanilla extract.
175g Plain flour.
1 tsp Baking powder.
Pinch of salt.
Buttercream
125g Vegan spread (I used PURE).
125g White Vegetable fat (I used Trex).
500g Icing sugar.
1 tsp Vanilla extract.
Methods:
Before you get into making the cupcakes, you’ll want to do some prep work. Start by preheating your oven to 180˚c/350˚f, weighing up all your ingredients, line a cupcake pan with cupcake cases and getting any equipment you may need ready to use.
Start by getting yourself a mixing bowl and placing the spread and sugar into it. Beat the two together until they are lighter and fluffier in colour and consistency.
Give the bowl a scraping down and start to add your oat milk in a little at a time, no matter how slowly you add the milk, the mixture with split and this is okay on this occasion. This will happen as you’re adding a lot of liquid into a mix which can’t handle it, it will be corrected once the flour is added.
Once all of the oat milk has been added, you can go ahead and sift in the flour, baking powder and salt. Mix on a low-medium speed until all the dry ingredients have been worked in. You’ll know once the batter is smooth and doesn’t show a trace of a single ingredient.
Don’t forget to line your cupcake pan with cupcake cases and transfer the cake batter into a piping bag (for convenience). Fill the cupcake cases just over half the way full, this is the ideal amount.
Place into your preheated oven and bake for 20-22 minutes or until well risen and a tester comes out clean (all ovens are different, so times may vary between each oven).
While your cupcakes are in the oven baking, now would be the ideal time to make your ‘butter’ cream!
Get yourself a large mixing bowl and place in the vegan spread and trex and beat them together until they are lighter and fluffier in colour and consistency – this doesn’t take too long usually.
Add in your first half of icing sugar, beating on a low speed to start then working your way up to a medium high. Repeat with the second batch of icing sugar.
Once all the icing sugar has been added, add in your vanilla and beat until its fully incorporated. Transfer the buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a nozzle (I went with an open star nozzle).
Once your cupcakes are fully baked (test by inserting a tester into the centre, if it comes out clean, they’re fully baked) remove from the oven and allow to cool fully before you finish them off.
Now you have your fully baked and cooled cupcakes and buttercream ready, you’re good to finish the cupcakes off by decorating them.
Pipe as much or as little buttercream you’d like on the cupcakes, repeat until you’re finished. Finish the cupcakes with some vegan friendly sprinkles (these are available online).
That’s it, you’re done! A really quick and easy recipe showing you how to make vegan vanilla cupcakes and to be honest with you, you can’t even tell they are vegan!
That’s all for today guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back soon with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my Instagram and Twitter. The YouTube video will be linked down below.
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