attempting to bake vegan (& gf!) carrot cake cupcakes

(This is a draft from September ‘22 that i thought i’d publish!)

So after my first try at vegan brownies went much better than expected, I was excited to jump back in and try out another one of Holly’s vegan recipes! This time — carrot cake cupcakes (minus the maple caramel core, because I didn’t want to test my newfound baking luck 🤨) . .

The recipe calls for . .

• 240mil ≈ 1 cup of dairy-free milk (I used the original Chobani Oatmilk)

• 1 tsp of apple cider vinegar

• 2 tsp of maple syrup (I used 100% pure maple syrup from Target)

• 210g ≈ 1 cup of self-raising flour (I used the King Arthur GF measure-for-measure flour + one of the reviews said it was self-raising so I crossed my fingers, even though it didn’t say so on the packing 🤞)

• 1 tbs of dark brown sugar

• 100g ≈ 1/2 cup of caster sugar

• 1/2 tsp of baking soda

• 1/2 tsp of baking powder

• 1/4 tsp of ground cinnamon

• 1/2 tsp of ground nutmeg

• 1 tsp of ground allspice

• 1/4 tsp of ground ginger

• 60ml ≈ 1/4 cup of vegetable oil

• 60g ≈ 3/4 cup of grated carrots

• 250g ≈ 1 cup + 1 tsp of dairy-free butter (I used the Mykonos one)

• 20g ≈ 1/8 cup of dairy-free cream cheese

• 300g ≈ 1 1/4 cups of icing sugar (confectioners' sugar)

• 10ml ≈ 2 tbs of aquafaba (for the icing — I didn’t include this)

To start off, I combined my oat milk (1 cup) with my apple cider vinegar (1 tsp) and maple syrup (2 tsp). I whisked it all together until it was combined, as instructed, and then grabbed a large mixing bowl for the other portion. in that bowl, I added the gluten-free flour, both sugars (since she said “sugars" plural in the instructions), the baking soda, baking powder, and all of my spices. In that bowl, I added the gluten-free flour, both sugars (since she said “sugars" plural in the instructions), the baking soda, baking powder, and all of my spices. then, I whisked all of that together until it became a pretty powdery orange.

After mixing up both separate bowls, I added my vegetable oil to my “buttermilk” bowl and mixed that up, before pouring it into the larger bowl to create my batter. After mixing everything together, I quickly shaved my carrots into 2/3 cups and poured them into the bowl. After some more mixing, I filled up my cupcakes up about 1/2 - 3/4 of the way with a spoon and stuck them in the oven at 356° F (108° C) for 20 minutes!

Next, it was time to focus on the buttercream frosting! This called for dairy-free butter, dairy-free cream cheese, confectioners’ sugar, and makeup syrup (and aquafaba, but I skipped that). In a large bowl, I added the butter & cream cheese, using my electric mixer until they were fluffy. Then, I added the sugar (ended up adding more last minute) & maple syrup, before mixing it all on high with my electric mixer. Then, I used my never-before-used icing kit from Michael’s & iced my cupcakes! Finally, I used some orange sprinkles and cinnamon sugar to top off the icing :)

And here’s the final result! Unfortunately, the cupcakes were a little bit dry, but the icing turned out amazing for my first buttercream frosting attempt (thanks to Holly’s guidance!!) I definitely expect to make more cupcakes/cakes in the future, so hopefully I’ll find my footing with the right ratios soon enough!