Baking Delight – Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes

Chocolate lovers, here is a super delish vegan version of your favourite chocolate cupcakes. I call these the ‘Crazy Chocolate Cupcakes’ for the reason that these rise without any effort of beating/folding the batter. The secret behind this is the use of white vinegar, which reacts with the baking powder to give it the desired fluffiness and sponginess.

I made these for my family and everyone loved the spongy, melt-in-the-mouth cupcakes. Since these turned out to be perfect for me, I decided to share the recipe with you all, with some handy tips and suggestions from my experience of baking these.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ Cups of All Purpose Flour (Maida)
• 1 Cup Granulated Sugar
• 1 Cup Water (at room temperature)
• 2 tbsp Cocoa Powder
• 4-6 tbsp Vegetable Oil
• 1 tsp Vanilla Essence
• 1-2 tsp Baking Powder
• ½ – 1 tbsp White Vinegar
• Pinch of salt

For Baking:

• Oven Preheated at 180⁰C or 350⁰F
• Greased cupcake moulds /moulds with cupcake liners

For Decorating:

• Nutella Hazelnut Chocolate Spread* (Nothing beats Nutella…yummy)
  • I tried using Rostaa** Chocolate Hazelnut Spread this time
• Crushed Roasted Almonds/Cashew Nuts
• Cadbury Gems/Nestle Smarties

Method:

• Sift all dry ingredients, i.e., flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking powder in a bowl
• Add sugar to the dry ingredient mix
• Add vinegar, oil and vanilla extract to the dry mix
• Pour a cup of water to the bowl and mix all the ingredients well to form a smooth batter
• Fill the greased/lined cupcake moulds up to ¾ of their depth/height and place them in the preheated oven and bake for 15-20 minutes
• Check after 15minutes with a toothpick, if it comes out clean the cupcakes are baked. If not, bake for 5-10 more minutes
• Repeat the process with the remaining batter to make more cupcakes
• Let the cupcakes completely cool down
• Decorate with chocolate spread, nuts and gems

Tips:

• This recipe makes around 15 cupcakes with the entire batter, but the numbers may vary depending on the size of your cupcake moulds
• In case you do not wish to make an entire batch of 15-20 cupcakes, reduce the quantity of ingredients provided in the recipe to half each
• Try using lesser chocolate powder if you don’t like a slight bitter taste in the cupcakes
• Some recipes suggest using baking soda instead of banking powder for extra rise after getting mixed with vinegar. But believe me it will make the cupcakes bitter. So stick to using baking powder
• Let the cupcakes completely cool down before frosting or serving for best taste
• These cupcakes are very spongy in themselves. However, to make them more chocolaty, sweeter and gooier, before putting the frosting make perforations with a toothpick and pour some Hershey’s chocolate syrup and then layer with chocolate spread

* The chocolate spread frosting is a super quick and healthier substitute for the buttercream frosting, primarily for the time challenged and health conscious, respectively :).

**Rostaa is an Indian brand and more economical than Nutella. It uses Belgian chocolate with a dash of Hazelnut flavour. I liked the taste and would not mind trying it the next time, but surely nothing beats the taste of Nutella.

Do try and let me know if you relished these!