What's Vegan and Vanilla All Over?

These delicious cupcakes, of course!

Sometimes there's nothing better than a vanilla cupcake with vanilla frosting. I am normally a chocolate cake kinda grrrl but every once and a while the wind changes and I want vanilla.

These cupcakes are great. They have a nice vanilla flavour, nothing too powerful, and the icing frosting doesn't taste overly sweet. Does anyone else mix up when to use frosting or icing? I'm not too fussy about that stuff, though. Okay... There is quite a lot of icing sugar in the frosting but the recipe makes a heck of a lot! We still have leftovers.

Many of our cupcakes didn't make the cut, photography wise, as Caitlin didn't appreciate my experimentation with wavy frosting but this one looks pretty swell. And tastes great too!

Golden Vanilla Cupcakes with FluffyButtercream Frosting Recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero
For the cupcakes:
1 cup unsweetened almond milk

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract Preheat oven to 350 F. Line muffin pan with cupcake liners. Spray lightly with cooking spray. Whisk the almond milk and vinegar in a measuring cup and set aside for a few minutes to get good and curdled. Sift the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl and mix. Beat together the almond milk mixture, oil, sugar, vanilla extract in a large bowl. Sift in the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and mix until no large lumps remain.  Fill cupcake liners two-thirds of the way and bake for 20 to 22 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack to cool. For the vanilla butter cream frosting: ½ cup nonhydrogenated shortening
½ cup nonhydrogenated margarine
3½ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1½ tsp. vanilla extract
¼ cup plain soy milk or soy creamer Beat the shortening and margarine together until well-combined and fluffy. Add the sugar and beat for about 3 more minutes. Add the vanilla and soy milk and beat for another 5 to 7 minutes until fluffy.