Vegan chocolate cupcakes with vegan chocolate frosting just for you and me!
Admittedly, the only non-vegan ingredient in my regular small-batch of chocolate cupcakes in my Sweet & Simple cookbook was buttermilk. Happily, the recipe was already egg-free, and so all I have to do is find a buttermilk substitute, right? Substituting milk alternatives for cow's milk is easy, right? Wrong.
Recipe testing for vegan chocolate cupcakes:
After a few rounds of sunken cupcakes made with random milk alternatives, I settled on unsweetened almond milk as the best thing to use.
Don't use coconut milk from the can (the extra oil is problematic) or homemade almond milk (too thick, presumably because of the dates). Anything thin and white will work. Alternative milks with texture or excess oil won't work.
But let's talk about what we do have: vegan chocolate cupcakes (small batch) with a ridiculously creamy chocolate buttercream on top.
How to make vegan chocolate frosting without using vegan butter:
We need to talk more about the frosting. It's just peanut butter, coconut oil, cocoa powder and powdered sugar! I also added in some espresso powder, because I really don't make chocolate desserts without it.
So so so good, you guys. I refrigerated it so that it would be pipe-able, but after just a few minutes in my hot house, it melted. But it's okay, because it was still so good.
I would say to save yourself the trouble of the piping bag, just frost these cupcakes with a knife and devour. I'm always a proponent of getting a dessert into your mouth the fastest way possible.
Here's the before photo of the frosting piped:
After stirring the frosting ingredients together, I refrigerated it for about 20 minutes in the frosting bag. I used melted coconut oil for the frosting, and so it needed some time to set again.
About 5 minutes after I piped it out, it started weeping. It's okay, though. You don't need to photograph your cupcakes like I do---you just need to eat them.
You can definitely pipe the frosting, and store them in the fridge before serving! Since our cupcakes don't contain butter, they won't harden in the fridge like regular cupcakes. Oh, how I love a good cake recipe made with oil! It's a bakery and wedding cake maker secret, did you know?
I hope you enjoy these vegan chocolate cupcakes, small batch. Let me know if you have any other vegan dessert requests!
And let me know if you think 4 cupcakes is enough for a small batch dessert :D
Vegan chocolate cupcakes, small batch recipe that makes just 4 cupcakes.Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes (small batch)
Ingredients
For the vegan chocolate buttercream:
Instructions
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
4
Serving Size:
1
Amount Per Serving:
Calories: 401Total Fat: 25gSaturated Fat: 6gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 17gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 232mgCarbohydrates: 37gFiber: 4gSugar: 22gProtein: 10g
Pamela says
Can I triple this recipe to make 12 cupcakes?
Christina Lane says
I haven't tried that, Pamela! If you do and it works, let us all know :)
sylvia says
Now that you have a precious baby girl (your family has grown)... will be doing Desserts for THREE?... Tee..hee..hee
; )
Megan says
Have you tried the recipe with gluten free flour or alternative? Just wondering if the same amount of flour would be required?
Christina Lane says
I have not, Megan. I'm sorry! I'm wondering if someone in the comments section has, tho!
Victoria says
Just made these and they were perfect. I did add additional coconut oil to the frosting in order to get the right consistency and it turned out amazing! Thanks for the recipe!
Sara says
I'm a new vegan and I was looking for a chocolate cupcake recipe to try. This was the first one that popped up on Google, and just let me say: THANK YOU! These are the best chocolate cupcakes I've ever made, and my carnivore family devoured them, too, gushing over them the whole time. Keep up the great work!
Heather says
Have you tried palm shortening in the icing instead of coconut oil? I often use it in place of butter or Crisco when I do allergy-friendly cupcakes (I haven’t ventured into gluten free, but I do dairy, egg, so, and nut free items - obviously this wouldn’t be nut free). Palm shortening has a higher melting point than coconut oil, so it might help with the frosting weeping.
Christina Lane says
Great tip, Heather! Thanks :)
Gracie Diamond says
Can I use cacao powder?
Christina Lane says
Yes :)
Judy says
How would you make the frosting non-vegan and without the peanut butter?
Christina Lane says
Plant butter.
Diane H says
Just made the vegan chocolate cupcakes in mini-heart cakelette pans and they turned out great. (Yielded 3 - 3" heart cakelettes and I baked the batter for 13 minutes).
Can you please add weights (in grams) to ingredients? (It's particularly important with small batch baking. Kitchen scales are so reasonable.)
My frosting was somewhat of a disaster. Dry and crumbly - I suspect it was due to the amount of cocoa I used. (Heaping can cover a wider range of measurements.) I ended up having to add 6 tablespoons of plant milk to the frosting, plus heating it in the microwave for about 30 seconds to make it spreadable. Despite all that, it started to firm up quickly, making it difficult to spread.
I ended up with a lot of extra frosting. I treated the leftover frosting like ganache. It could be rolled into balls and then rolled in cocoa or some sort of topping (e.g. sprinkles, chopped nuts, shredded coconut, etc) then chilled and served as truffles.
Christina Lane says
Hi Diane! Yes, I am working on adding metric to all recipes. This one will be updated right now, actually, because I just finished verifying the metric weights last week :)
wittle wenis says
can use soy milky? no amlond milky 🥺🥺🥺🥺
Christina Lane says
Absolutely :)