Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

Chocolate and peanut butter go together like peas and carrots.

However, you’re not going to see me making pea cupcakes with carrot frosting [actually don’t put it past me].

There were more ‘Welcome Home!’ treats for Andrew and an excuse for me to eat cake batter. I went the vegan route again, this time trying the ol’ vinegar in the milk trick to achieve buttermilk. I’m sold.

Making things is always a challenge in my kitchen. Especially since I’m usually bouncing between the counter and my pseudo-counter [the kitchen table]. Try doing that dodging dog toys and this face:

It stops being cute after awhile, I promise. She makes up for it by cleaning up my messes long before I care to get out the broom.

I went ahead and made half of the recipe I’m about to lay down. We were leaving to Seattle the following morning. I didn’t want to leave cupcakes over the weekend, so six cupcakes gone within 24 hours? Not a problem! Snacks when we got back from the airport plus a breakfast of champions took care of that in no time. I made a totally undocumented version of peanut butter frosting. I know it had a little powdered sugar, a lot of [soy] cream cheese, and peanut butter [duh]. I whipped it into a frenzy, ate a lot of it before frosting, and then poorly frosted them. Just because it ain’t pretty, doesn’t mean it doesn’t taste good.

Inspiration: C’est La Vegan

Ingredients

• 1 cup non-dairy milk
• 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 3/4 cup organic sugar
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 4 tablespoons dutch cocoa
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Preparation

1. Preheat your oven to 350º.
2. Use liners in your muffin tin if you have ’em, or just Pam the hell out of them like I did. I kind of like them sans liners.
3. Whisk milk and vinegar in a bowl [probably glass to be safe] and set it aside to get curdled.
4. In a bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients, minus the sugar.
5. Whisk the sugar, oil, and vanilla extract into the milk mixture.
6. Add the flour mixture to the milk mixture [or vice versa if your bowl doesn’t hold it], and mix until just combined. Don’t overmix! Dense, chewy cupcakes suck!
7. Divide the mixture into your muffin tins.
8. Bake cupcakes for 15-18 minutes until a tester comes out clean [honestly, it took mine like 25 minutes, and even then…].
9. Make your frosting, if you dare. Or just use premade stuff. Cheater.
10. Eat.