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How to Make Cupcakes That Will Compete With Your Local Bakery

With cupcakes being one of the hottest desserts around, you can surprise your family and friends with cupcakes you make yourself that will compete with anything at the local bakery.  Our choice today is a chocolate cupcake with a surprise; chipotle.  The recipe also includes one for a cream cheese frosting to top these yummy cupcakes.

CHIPOTLE CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES

1 pkg (2-layer-size) devil’s food cake mix
1 1/4 cups sour cream
3 eggs
1/3 cup canola oil
2 tbsp instant coffee granules
1/2 to 1 tsp ground chipotle chili pepper (amount according to how much spice/heat you want.)
1 pkg. (11.5 oz) semisweet chocolate chunks
2 tsp all-purpose flour
1 recipe frosting (below)
2 oz. chopped semisweet chocolate
1/4 cup whipping cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 dozen muffin cups with paper liners and set aside.

In a mixing bowl, combine cake mix, sour cream, eggs, oil, coffee granules, and chili pepper. Beat with electric mixer on low speed to combine. Beat on medium to high for 2 minutes. This will be a thick batter.

In another bowl, toss chocolate chunks with the flour. Fold into the chocolate batter. Spoon evenly into the muffin tins. Bake at 350 degrees for 18 to 22 minutes or until the tops spring back with lightly touched. Cool in the pans on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove from the pans to completely cool. When cool, frost with the frosting recipe below.

FROSTING RECIPE:

8 oz pkg cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 to 2 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar

In a mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter on medium speed for about 30 seconds. Beat in the vanilla. Start gradually beating in the confectioners’ sugar until you reach the desired consistency. Frost cupcakes or dip them into the frosting.

To make chocolate drizzle for garnish, place chopped chocolate in a small bowl. Heat cream to boiling. Pour the cream over the chocolate; do not stir. Let sit for 5 minutes then whisk until smooth. Place chocolate in a zip-top plastic bag. Snip a small piece off one corner of the bag. Drizzle chocolate over the cupcakes in a pattern of your choosing to decorate.

Enjoy!

For more sweets and dessert recipes visit my blog at http://ladybugssweettreats.blogspot.com

www.allergydiet.co.uk – From the makers of the best Gluten Free Recipes in the World, comes their famous Cup Cake recipe.
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How to find the Perfect Valentine’s Day Vegan Cupcakes

Valentine’s Day is the time to celebrate the beauty of love and relationships.  Whether you are married or dating, presenting your significant other with a vegan Valentine’s Day cupcake is a great way of making the day more eco-friendly.  The usual options of flowers and candy are great, of course, but cupcakes are also perfect for the holiday.  They are cute, delicious, and beautifully designed.

Vegan cupcakes don’t have any ingredients that were derived from animals. Therefore, these cupcakes won’t contain milk, butter or eggs.  However, with a bit of advance planning, you can make sure these cupcakes are still delicious.

Nothing says romance like a homemade touch. Your significant other will know that you went the extra mile to create something special for Valentine’s Day.  If you are making your own vegan cupcakes for Valentine’s Day, there are plenty of recipes that you can easily find online.

Instead of the eggs, you will usually be replacing flax seeks or silken tofu. The flax seeds need to be ground finely and then you simply need to beat in some water. This process gives the flax seeds a gooey quality that will make them a great substitution for eggs.  You can also use silken tofu instead of eggs.  The ratio is about ¼ of a cup tofu to equal one egg.  Many people who make vegan cupcakes will also choose to use a banana.  To make the correct quantity for one egg, use about ½ a banana.

So what about the other traditional cupcake ingredients of milk and butter?  Milk can be substituted with soymilk, or rice milk.  Even almond milk will do the trick.  Instead of butter, you can use margarine.  The quantity would be ¼ teaspoon of margarine standing in for ½ a cup of butter.  Canola oil can also stand in for butter.  Simply reduce the amount that you would need of the butter.  You need slightly less oil that you would have needed butter.

As far as cupcake flavors go, nearly all of them will work for Valentine’s Day. Popular choices are chocolate cupcakes, or strawberry cupcakes. After all, pink is a popular color for Valentine’s Day.

Now that you have some idea of what ingredients can be substituted to make vegan cupcakes, you can try some decorating.  Typically, you want some sort of pink or red decorations on your Valentine’s Day cupcakes.  You can make a chocolate or vanilla cupcake and give it pink or red frosting and it automatically starts to look more suitable for Valentine’s Day.

You can really get creative on Valentine’s Day and decorate your vegan cupcakes with smiles, heart shapes, flower designs, and even “X” and “O” symbols.  If you have a batch of cupcakes ready, you can decorate each one differently with different shades of pinks and reds and different hearts.   Some other great decorative touches for vegan cupcakes for Valentine’s Day would be to add chocolate frosting with pink embellishments or pink frosting with coconut.

Just remember since your cupcakes are vegan, make sure that not only are there no animal products in your cakes, but also none in your frosting.   Remember the frosting should have no eggs, milk or butter, so make sure you replace these animal products with one of the ingredients mentioned above.   If your significant other is a vegan, and you go out of your way to make vegan cupcakes for Valentine’s Day, you can be sure that your efforts will be truly appreciated.

Melody enjoys cupcake decorating and you can find more fun ideas on her blog.

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