I have a friend. Shock horror, I know. He’s pretty cool. We work together and sometimes drink at hip new Sydney bars together. Recently, he decided to become a vegan for a month - purely for a bet. One alcohol fuelled night my friend bet his mates that he could go vegan for a whole month. Typical males. Now, he is writing a blog about it. You can follow his adventures here. During the last few weeks I have enjoyed taunting my friend, Vinnie, with emails of what I will be consuming for lunch that day, ALWAYS including a large chunk of animal product. It’s just what a good friend does.
Just last week I stumbled upon this recipe. I was fascinated by the concept of ‘self icing’ cupcakes. No mess, no extra fuss and you still get to lick the bowl clean. Umm what’s not to love? Only glitch in the plan – it’s a vegan recipe. I was all pumped up for some peanut butter cupcakes with self icing chocolate sauce but I wasn’t about to go and buy a bunch of flax seeds to quell my foodie desires. Now, don’t get me wrong. As a reformed vegetarian of eight years, I can understand the motives behind veganism. But as a result, I can now also appreciate meat. I am now that girl in the group who could actually pass for a guy with all my beer-drinking and meat lovers-pizza-eating. Oh, how times have changed.
Regardless, I went about my plans to suck down several of these cupcakes but without the ‘vegan theme hanging over my head. I reworked the recipe to feature many glorious animal products including milk and eggs. And now I present it to you. Enjoy.
Self icing peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate icing.
Adapted from My Sweet Vegan (by Hannah Kaminsky) as published on http://wingitvegan.blogspot.com/2011/04/cookbook-love-my-sweet-vegan-with.html
Makes 12 cupcakes.
Peanut Butter Cupcakes:
2/3 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoon bicarb soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting:
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup Dutch process cocoa powder
2/3 cup icing sugar
1/4 cup full cream milk
To make the cupcakes:
Preheat oven to 175 degrees C and grease a 12 hole muffin pan.
Using electric mixer combine buttermilk, both sugar, eggs, peanut butter, oil and vanilla into your mixer. In a separate bowl, add the flour, bicarb soda, and salt. Add dry ingredients one spoonful at a time into the wet ingredients. Mix until there are no lumps.
To make the icing:
Using an electric mixer, or a hand whisk, combine all of the ingredients for the icing until smooth.
Assemble the cupcakes and icing:
Divide batter between the prepared muffin holes. Add a spoonful of icing into the top of each cupcake and swirl use a toothpick or squewer to swirl and spread over the entire cupcake. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.
Be careful if you plan on eating these straight out of the oven.. the icing is like lava and will burn a hole in your head. Perfect warmed up with a side of ice cream!
At the time of publishing, you still have nine days of vegan life ahead of you. Which means you can’t eat these cupcakes. Suck it, bitch! These bad boys are good and you’re missing out!
BUT, if you’re lucky, then maybe I’ll make a batch to celebrate your return to the meat eating, animal product consuming life.
Love KayBizzle.
