Makes 12 cupcakes | 45 minutes
Having started Veganuary, one thing I’ve done more of is experiment with food. And it’s fun. Although these vegan caramel coffee & walnut cupcakes will probably not be the best things to eat alongside my Insanity routine, they were incredibly fun to make. I’ve dabbled with vegan cupcakes before but these were the first ones to rise! I was also rather pleased at the addition of the Caramel Douwe Egberts’ coffee – it almost gives them a sticky toffee twist without having an overpowering coffee taste. These are a treat to be savoured along with a great cup of coffee. The best thing was, I took them into work and not one person could believe they were vegan!
Let me know how you get on when you make them!
Ingredients
For the cupcakes
- 2 teaspoons of Douwe Egberts Smooth Caramel Coffee mixed with two tablespoons of hot water
- 1 cup of organic soya milk
- 1 tablespoon of cider vinegar
- 1/3 cup of oil (I used olive oil)
- 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
- 2 cups of flour (you can use wholemeal if you want to be healthier)
- 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
- 1 teaspoon of baking powder
- Pinch of salt
- ¾ cup of brown sugar or agave syrup
- Large handful of chopped walnuts
- 12 walnut halves for decoration
For the icing
- 2 cups of sifted icing sugar
- 2 teaspoons of Douwe Egberts Smooth Caramel Coffee mixed with two tablespoons of hot water
- ½ cup of dairy-free spread (at room temperature)
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180’C and grease your muffin tray.
- Whisk the soya milk and the vinegar together before adding in the oil, vanilla and Douwe Egberts caramel coffee.
- In another bowl, sift all the dry cake ingredients together (flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, salt) and add the sugar, mixing well.
- Mix the dry ingredients into the wet and whisk until smooth and creamy-looking. You want this quite runny so add more milk if its too dry.
- Add the chopped walnuts and stir in well.
- Divide the mixture evenly into your muffin tin and place in the oven for around 25 minutes or until the sponge is springy and is separating from the edges of the tin.
- Remove from the oven and leave to cool for fifteen minutes.
- Moving onto the icing, add half a cup of icing to the spread and whisk or blend well together (I have a hand blender which worked fine). I can find it hard to blend the spread if it’s just out the fridge so I often warm it in the microwave for 20 seconds beforehand.
- Once the first half cup of icing sugar has thoroughly mixed with the spread, add the second half cup and blend in again. Keep adding the icing sugar until its all blended in. The icing should be quite stiff by this point. In the last addition of icing sugar, also add the pinch of salt.
- Add in the vanilla extract and caramel coffee and blend again until the colour evens out into a light creamy colour. The icing shouldn’t be sloppy (add spoonfuls of icing sugar if so) and should fall off your spoon slowly (if it doesn’t, add a little more coffee a teaspoon at a time).
- Once you’re happy with the consistency, evenly spread on your cupcakes and for the piece de resistance, add a walnut half to each.
- Share.
- Eat.
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