AuburnChick's Adventures

I had somewhat of a baking fail on Saturday.

I won’t provide the details, but I will say that I think it was the fault of the recipe, not Yours Truly.

Fortunately, it wasn’t a cupcake fail.  It was a dessert recipe the Mr. had found on Facebook.  I won’t be making that recipe again.

With that failure in mind, I felt the need to redeem myself.

I’d already purchased items for my next batch of cupcakes, but I’d put off the baking all week.

It was time…

To make…

S’mores Cupcakes…with buttercream frosting and chocolate ganache drizzle…

We here at Chez AuburnChick are food critics, let me tell you.

Here’s what we decided.

The flavor of the cupcakes is delicious.  There’s cinnamon in the batter, and it comes through.

The texture is strange though.

The recipe calls for soy yogurt.  Because I live in Podunk, USA, I could not find soy yogurt ANYWHERE.  Ugh.

I googled for a substitute and discovered that I could use buttermilk.

Being lactose-intolerant and a vegan, but being in possession of the following recipe book (in which the above recipe can be found), I’d learned that vegan buttermilk can be made by mixing together a spot of apple cider vinegar with soy milk.

I substituted this for the yogurt.

I’d also substituted coconut oil for the canola oil per a discussion I’d had with the owner of the health food store I frequent.

The cupcake batter was liquidy but with strange little lumps.

I still don’t know why.

It’s got to be one of the above substitutions.

The cupcakes did cook though, but the texture is very spongy.

My buttercream also did not come out as well as the Golden Vanilla cupcakes I made last weekend.

I have no idea why.

I figured out that adding more powdered sugar doesn’t help in this situation.

The icing was still yummy…just not as fluffy as I’d like.

I’m learning that there is a science to baking, and practice really does make perfect.

I am having a lot of fun practicing, let me tell you!

Filed under: Vegan | Tagged: baking, S'mores cupcakes, vegan |