HAPPY BIRTHDAY PHILLIE LESTER: VEGAN DOUBLE SWIRL CUPCAKES
Phil is 32 today and I wanted to create an amazing (no pun intended) set of cupcakes that really captivated his personality in celebration of his birthday. Last year, I did a mini red velvet cake with chocolate icing-that reminds me, I have a rich, vegan red velvet cake in the works for next month! There will also be some Valentine's Day baking. I'm not sure what exactly, but it will be something amazing.
I was going to make the cake from scratch like I often do, but depression is zapping me of motivation and is fatiguing me, so I went with a box cake. Yes! There are many boxed cake mixes that are vegan! Some do contain milk, so best read the labels before getting anything. I believe I bought mine at Aldi. To make this cake, you can use any vegan substitute you want, but I went with banana. I really wanted to try applesauce, but I realised I was out of it. HAHA.
I was going to make the cake from scratch like I often do, but depression is zapping me of motivation and is fatiguing me, so I went with a box cake. Yes! There are many boxed cake mixes that are vegan! Some do contain milk, so best read the labels before getting anything. I believe I bought mine at Aldi. To make this cake, you can use any vegan substitute you want, but I went with banana. I really wanted to try applesauce, but I realised I was out of it. HAHA.
Put the baking mix into a large bowl, add the water, vegetable oil and mashed banana. One banana will do you. Make sure that you mash it well before dumping the mash into the mixture. Using an electric hand mixer, blend the ingredients though before separating the batter into two separate bowls. Using food colouring, whatever vegan one you desire, and turn one portion of the batter blue, the other light purple. The food dyes can be expensive and very difficult to work with if you don't have any experience with them.
Once you've coloured both portions of the batter, it's time to make some cupcakes! You can use any standard cupcake liners and set the oven temperature to 350F. Using a small ladle, you're going to scoop a bit of one batter and pour it into the cupcake liners. Once all are filled with one shade of batter, you're going to take the unused shade and pour it on top of the first shade of batter inside the cupcake liner. Once. That is done, take a silver knife and swirl the two colours of batter together; it will have a sort of tie-dye effect when you're done. Put into bake for 22-25 minutes or until completely baked.
While the cupcakes are baking, you're going to need to make the icing for it. We're going to be doing purple and blue icing to match the cupcake colours. There are many ready-made icings that are already vegan! All you have to do is read your labels, but if you're like me and like to home make your icing, you can follow the simple steps below. If you've bought icing in the shops, you can just skip down to the icing step.
To make this amazing month and creamy vegan buttercream icing you will need
1c room temperature vegan butter **don't use margarine or any type of substitute like that, the icing will not hold its have and will make a giant mess.
3c icing sugar
2 tsp almond milk or any other nut milk that you enjoy. Cashew is the second best for this.
1 tsp vanilla essence
Start by placing all of your ingredients in one large bowl, except the picking sugar, add in only 11/2 of it. Begin to blend on low-medium speed with an electric hand mixer. Add the rest of the icing sugar as you begin to blend. The mixture will become thick and creamy, almost to the exact consistency of regular icing. The process is really simple; it's the same as normal homemade buttercream icing, except you're just subbing a few things. :)
Once your cupcakes are fully baked, pull them out of the oven and allow them to fully cool before attempting to ice them. You can ice with any tip that you want, but I used a 1D (I believe; there's a link below to get similar tips to achieve this cupcake look.) Fill the icing bag 1/2 full with each icing, and slowly ice around the top of the cupcake, starting in the centre and working your way outward. It will result in a lovely, thick icing swirl of colour. I really couldn't be happier with how these came out, they're amazing! This is my first time ever doing a double colour swirl and I can't wait to do it again and attempt a tricolour swirl.
Now it wouldn't be Phil without some over the top rainbow added to it. I added some mini golden oreo cookies to the top, just as another little pop of colour and to add something extra to it! Top wth rainbow sprinkles. There you have it, the 2019 Lester Cupcakes! I might just call these the second Phil inspired cupcake... I have a few others that I want to do, I just need to figure out how to make a vegan version of them. I still have 11 months to figure all that out. I hope you guys enjoy these, not just today, but any day that you make them! Happy 32nd birthday Phil!
Comments
Post a Comment