Vegan Red Velvet Cupcakes

One fun fact about me that not many people know is that I grew up vegan. My mom prioritized health and having healthy kids was important to her. When I was a child, we didn’t eat anything that came out of boxes or cans and we certainly weren’t allowed to have any junk food. It was annoying but we were very healthy.

The one exception was our birthdays when we would have cake and sherbet. My mom made everything from scratch, including bread and ensured that we ate wholesome, clean food long before clean eating was a trend. When we moved to the US when I was 12, it was difficult to continue the vegan diet so we adapted to more of a vegetarian diet, which was still healthy.

Fast forward a few years, I decided being vegetarian was no longer for me and incorporated lean protein and fish into my diet. About six years ago, I added beef and shellfish to my diet, which I’ve since which eliminated. My mom primarily stayed vegetarian, but in the past couple years, she’s gone back to her vegan roots. 

Recently, my mom has been dabbling into vegan ice cream, raw crackers, cheesecakes and many other delicious eats. It’s been great for me because I’m striving to be 95 percent plant based starting in June. For many people, vegan is yucky or fake or gross and I think that’s because they just aren’t knowledgeable about it. My goal is to create delicious food that doesn’t taste like whatever vegan is supposed to taste like.

And here we have these wonderful Red Velvet Cupcakes. These were made for my mom’s birthday lunch this past Sunday. I’ve dabbled a bit into vegan baking over the years but baking without eggs confuses me a bit. Thankfully, these cupcakes were far from confusing and everyone enjoyed them – especially my mom. 

Vegan Red Velvet Cupcakes + Cream Cheese Icing
makes 12

Ingredients
1 cup almond milk (or your favourite non-dairy milk)
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup coconut oil
1 teaspoon red food gel or as much as you want to create a bright red (mine are a bit darker) 
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 ½ cups powdered sugar
1 stick vegan butter
2 tablespoons almond milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 and line muffin tin.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl and whisk together.
3. In a medium size bowl, mix together the milk and vinegar and let it sit for five minutes. This creates vegan buttermilk once it curdles.
4. Once the milk has curdled, stir in the oil, food gel and vanilla extract. Whisk until combined.
5. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix on medium until just combined. You don’t want to over mix as we want light and fluffy cupcakes, not dense cupcakes.
6. Fill each muffin tin 3/4ths full of the batter and bake for 20 minutes.
7. Take a small knife or fork and insert into a cupcake. If the knife comes out clean, cupcakes are done.
8. Let cool on wire racks.

Vegan Cream Cheese Icing

1. Add all the butter, almond milk, vinegar, vanilla and salt to the mixing bowl, finishing with the powdered sugar. Sift it in to ensure there are no lumps.
2. Mix on high until smooth and creamy.
3. You may need to add another cup of sugar, depending on how sweet you want the icing. If it’s too thick, add a slash of milk to get it to the right consistency.
4. Once cupcakes are cool, fill a piping bag with icing and pipe onto the cupcakes

ecipe from www.egglesscooking.com