My first Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes

I did it! I did my first Vegan baking on Friday night. It's Vanilla Soymilk Cupcakes. Totally vegan. Not that I'm a vegan but I've always been curious about vegan cakes. How good could they get without the eggs?

Here is the recipe I did.

Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup soymilk (I actually used sweetened commercial soymilk in a bottle)
1/2 tbs sugar cane vinegar (you may use any type of clear vinegar I think)
1/4 cup vegetable oil (all I had was cheap palm cooking oil)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl. I like to use a whisk here.
2. Pour the vinegar into the soymilk, stir a little to mix it and let it curdle.
3. Pour the oil into the soymilk mixture and stir well.
4. While still stirring the soymilk/oil mixture, pour it into the dry mixture.
5. Carefully mix it all together till there is no lump.
(I am scared of over-mixing because of previous gluten disaster cake batter)
6. Fill up your cupcake liners of choice.
7. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 deg C or 340 deg F for about 15 mins.

I managed to yield 9 cupcakes on a Standard-size Cupcake liners. About 3 1/4 oz size.

The texture is pretty fluffy for an eggless cuppie.
It will never be a sponge cake but not as dense and heavy as I expected it to be.

How did it turn out?

1. The milk thing

I think the kind of milk you use will affect how this cupcake will taste. My cupcake tasted like soymilk. I know some vegans avoid any soy which I will never understand why. It's one of my favourite drinks since I was a kid along with chrysanthemum tea, sugar cane juice, lychee, grass jelly. I haven't yet tasted almond milk or rice milk but I'm sure what those taste would greatly define the final cupcakes if you want to eat unfrosted.

2. Light sweet tooth

There is something that feels really light about this. There is no rich taste of the normal recipe with eggs and cow's milk. The egg and dairy cakes are rich and delicious but to an average person, after 2 or 3 cupcakes, you have to stop. It gets too much. With this vegan cupcake, I found myself easily putting 4 cupcakes into my mouth and not feeling this was too much. They were like sweet bread to my tongue. Meaning it will be much easier to pair this cupcake with any frosting you want.

3. Texture and all

What happened when I tried to peel off the cupcake liner right after baking.
The cake got peeled off too. Ha..ha!

Look at the cake ending up on the liner!
The cake is moist. Very moist. The oil and soymilk must have done it good :-)

4. Better after they cooled down in a few hours or the next day.

This is the cupcake the day after.
The cake did not come off like it did when peeled off hot.

The inner texture. Better than some of my non-vegan cupcakes.

I think I have made something non-vegan similar to this .
If I can achieve the same result minus the eggs, then I think I would rather go for the Vegan version. More convenient and less calories.


It looked and tasted better the next day. Soft and moist.

5. Why vegan baking appeals to me?

Eggs are tricky to keep fresh if you don't have a fridge. I would rather fill up my mini fridge with fruits. Butter is too expensive and also take up space in the fridge but we have plenty of cooking oil in stock everyday. I haven't yet tried things like Canola Oil and the likes but other than Peanut Oil , I think most oils are pretty much tasteless.

6. Would I make them again?

YES! Definitely.

What? No posts for October?!

I can't believe I didn't post anything in October. I'm not proud of this, you know. It means I couldn't even pull myself away from getting too immersed in my busy October schedule for my personal life. I'm guilty of not replying yet to my friend's email. I owe her that.

So, what happened in my life back in October?

1. I went through a series of Audits and Customer meetings. Had a "verbal tension" with this lady from Purchasing. Actually, I do like her but sometimes, when it comes to work, she treats me like I should be chanelling all of my time and resources for HER agenda. When she didn't get what she wants there and then, she would start rattling off words which boil my temper hot. Hey, I can't just split myself into 4 lady!!

2. I got a new boy in my Section. A cute boy and he drives me nuts. No, not that! Ha...ha...! It's just that he's got what I call "the today's generation's syndrome". Meaning, today's kids are pretty spineless expecting things to be served to them on a silver platter. These kids live in an age of the Internet and cellphones. Nobody left schools nowadays without knowing how to use the computer. These kids want things easy and crumble easily at any hint of hardship. So, what's my gripe on my newest boy? Well, he's polite. They all are. However, he drives me insane when he feels the need to come to me EVERY time. Oh, another big gripe of mine about kids nowadays is they have UGLY handwriting and this boy is no exception. I hope by the end of the year, he will be more and more independent. I probably can't do anything about the handwriting though.

3. It's hard not to want to shout profanities at work to some nincompoops in the Administration for making our lives super difficult.

4. For the umpteenth time, I wish the Alien would just DIE! Anyone who knows my blog for quite some time would know who the Alien is. There is an Alien parading around in our company HR as a human. That creature is the most INHUMAN being I've ever known. This is what happened. I got my latest Payslip and saw that they cut out TWO HOURS of payment for my two overtimed Saturdays. As it turned out, the Alien had instructed (this is not written anywhere in the company rules) that any employees in my salary threshold will lose ONE WHOLE HOUR of payment if we scan in our employee card at even ONE MINUTE over 8.00am!!!! Crazy!!! The thing is we only get paid MYR6.25 per hour which is less than USD2! This is insane! Guess what? I have a new wish for the A*****e. I hope he dies of some anal disease or something.

My company's recent 21st Anniversary Buttercream Sponge Cake.
I burned my fingers accidentally while lighting the candles.

5. I finally got through the company's Annual Celebration. I was forced to work alongside the Alien closely yet again this year for it. What a nightmare! The only good thing I got this year is the fact that my friends took some great quality photos of me. I actually looked good without the metallic weird makeup they put on me last year. I made my own face and I looked like myself and that's the way I like it.