Vegan Strawberry Basil Cupcake

I followed the Basic vanilla vegan cupcake recipe, substituting 1/3 cup with cornmeal, and about half a cup of sliced strawberries & 1 tsp dried basil were added.

Very moist and fluffy. No frosting this time...

Vegan Black Sesame Cupcake with Fake Cheese Frosting with Green Tea

I love black sesame. I'm trying to find what could go well with it, though. I looked some Japanese dessert sites, and there were some with green tea, hmm, maybe they are a good match. There are other recipes with chocolate. That could be good too. I think I just have to do some experiments.


ingredients for the cupcake (makes 12):

1/3 cup black sesame (roughly ground) + flour makes 1 and 2/3 cup
1 tsp Baking Soda and Baking Powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp Vinegar + Rice milk makes 1 and 1/4 cup
100 ml oil
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla

direction:
preheat the oven at 350 degree.
Place papers.
1. Mix vinegar and milk, leave it aside.
2. Measure all the dry ingredients, mix well, leave it aside.
3. In a large bowl, combine sugar, oil, vanilla, beat well with an electric mixer.
4. Slowly introduce the milk mixture into "3". This will be very watery, but keep beating.
5. Add the flour mixture at once, beat quickly for about 10 seconds, scrape off the side once and then beat for another 5 seconds. The batter will be smooth.
6. Divide the batter into 12, filling about 2/3 each cup. Bake for about 18 to 20 minutes.


The cake turned out to be amazingly soft and fluffy, full of sesame flavor. I like it as it is, this doesn't really need any frosting, in my opinion. But to make it a little fancy, a thin layer of dark or white chocolate might be good...
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The fake cheese frosting turned out to be somewhat acceptable, but not sure if I like it or not. Definitely the choice of tofu was wrong; I used the hard tofu because that was all I had. The result was too rough. And maybe the lemon should be reduced, or not used at all. I list what I did with it anyway for my own purpose, but this really needs more experiments, so please don't follow the recipe yet...

ingredients for the vegan cheese icing with green tea:
1/4 cup hard tofu
1/2 cup powder sugar
1/4 lard
1 to 2 Tbsp lemon juice (or just plain soy milk might be better)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp green tea/sencha (+ 1/2 tsp matcha)

direction:
Blend tofu with some lemon using a hand blender. Then in a separate bowl, with a fork, mix lard and sugar, slowy adding the tofu mixture until the right consistency.

Vegan Vanilla Cupcake for BD

This was almost a month ago, I went to my friend's BD party.
One cupcake with a stick of candle, that was a small gift for him. We never got to fire up the candle, sing the BD song nor made him blow it. I missed the right moment to do any of it, as I knew nobody there except the BD boy and two of my friends. Oh well...

For the first time I got to use the piping tube kit thing I just got recently. It is fun. I used to use it when I was small but it was such a long time ago.

The icing is a standard vanilla icing:

1/4 cup margarine (room temperature)
1/4 cup vegetarian lard (room temperature)
1 cup powder sugar
some vanilla
(and I like some almond essence and a bit of rum added)
and some soy milk

Just mix everything above with a fork and gradually add the milk until the right consistency.