Vegan Sticky Gingerbread Cupcakes with Vegan Lemony Buttercream

[schema type=”recipe” name=”Vegan Sticky Gingerbread Cupcakes with a Vegan Lemony Frosting” author=”Rachel Howard” pubdate=”2013-11-24″ image=”http://www.sundaybaking.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Vegan-Gingerbread-cupcakes-700.jpg” description=”Moist, fluffy gingerbread cupcakes topped with a fresh lemony buttercream. And it’s all Vegan friendly! ” prepmins=”15″ cookmins=”20″ yield=”12″ ]

I promise you would never know that these delightful sticky gingerbread cupcakes with lemony frosting were vegan!

Last week I was asked to make some more of my Vegan Black Forest Gateaux Cupcakes. This really boosted my confidence with Vegan baking and this time I tried them. And they were lovely! Really tasty. So when I received another order for some cupcakes this week and a request for some to be Vegan I was more than happy to try a different flavour.

I asked Kieron to flick through the Vegan Cupcake Book and he chose these – Sticky Gingerbread Cupcakes with a Lemony Buttercream. And they are pretty festive too!

[callout title=Ingredients for the Cupcakes:]

• 175g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 112g vegetable oil
• 113g light molasses (I used Golden Syrup)
• 170g maple syrup (I used Maple Syrup flavoured Golden Syrup as it’s what I had in the cupboard!)
• 60g soya milk
• 30g soya yoghurt (I used lemon flavour as I couldn’t find any plain)
• Lemon zest of 1 lemon
• 50g finely chopped crystalised ginger

[/callout]

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180C and line a muffin tin with paper cupcake liners
• Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and salt into a bowl and mix
• Whisk the oil, molasses, maple syrup, soya milk, yoghurt and lemon zest in a separate large bowl
• Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until smooth
• Fold in the chopped crystalised ginger (Don’t forget it like I nearly did!)
• Fill the cupcake liners 2/3 full
• Bake for 19 – 22 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean

[callout title=Ingredients for the Frosting:]

• 57g vegetable fat – I used Trex
• 57g soya margarine
• 320g icing sugar
• 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 2 tsp finely grated lemon zest
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

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Method:

• Cream the vegetable fat and margarine until well combined
• Add half the icing sugar and beat well
• Add half the lemon juice and mix
• Add the remaining icing sugar and beat
• Add the remaining lemon juice and zest and beat well
• Add the vanilla extract and beat until light and fluffy – this can take up to 5 minutes

When these were cooled and frosted I added a piece of crystallised ginger and took one into the lounge to share. Wow. We are converted – Vegan Cupcakes CAN be amazing! And they are so easy to make. The sponge was really flavoursome and sticky and the lemony frosting worked really well with it.