Vegan vanilla cupcakes with raw sugar icing

Dairy free // Egg free // Vegan

It's easy to make your own raw icing sugar, which gives a slightly darker colour to the icing but imparts a lovely caramel flavour, and of course is less refined than standard icing sugar. 

Now that the school year has started,

there's a demand for wholesome, delicious lunchbox snacks,

and one of the most popular items in our house are cupcakes.

But rather than being loaded up with white sugar, refined white flour,

butter, cow milk and eggs, 

this version uses stoneground wholewheat flour,

a modest amount of raw sugar,

plant milks, fruit oils & vinegar as a raising agent. 

They are moist, always reliable,

and can be quickly changed to other flavours with the addition

of coconut, grated orange zest, poppy seeds or ground nuts.

Sometimes they get topped with a small dollop of icing,

sometimes not,

but whichever version, 

they never seem to last till the end of the week in our house!

Vanilla Cupcakes with Raw Sugar Icing

INGREDIENTS

500 mls (2 cups) plant milk

2 teaspoons white or apple cider vinegar

350 gm plain stoneground wholemeal flour

3 teaspoons baking powder (not baking soda)

⅓ cup almond oil

⅓ olive oil

⅓ cup raw or rapadura sugar

2 teaspoons natural vanilla essence

METHOD

1. Preheat fanforced oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F).

2. Line 2 x 12 cupcake trays with paper liners, or if using stainless steel cupcake trays, brush with olive oil.

3. Stir vinegar into plant milk in a small jug and leave to curdle. (This should only take a a few minutes.)

4. Mix baking powder into flour and put to one side.

5. In a large bowl or stand mixer bowl, beat together the oils, sugar and vanilla.

6. Add a third of the flour and stir in gently.

7. Add a third of the curdled milk, and stir gently to mix.

8. Repeat the flour/ milk additions, adding a third each time. Do not overmix or the batter will be tough.

9. Spoon mixture into the 24 cupcake cases, and bake for approximately 15 minutes, or until a finger impression bounces back from the surface.

10. Cool on wire cooling racks.

11. Ice with small blobs of raw sugar icing, adding sprinkles if desired.

RAW SUGAR ICING INGREDIENTS

2 cups raw sugar

1 tablespoon vegan butter or coconut oil, softened slightly in microwave or warm oven

1 teaspoon natural vanilla essence

splash plant milk

ICING METHOD

1. Place sugar into high speed blender and blitz until a fine powder is formed.

2. Transfer to a mixing bowl, and stir in vegan butter or coconut oil, vanilla and just enough plant milk to make a soft dropping consistency.

MAKES 24 CUPCAKES.

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