(I am so sorry if the layout is shocking.. I’ve forgotten how to blog my bakes..)

HEY! So you may be asking ‘hey G why u going vegan?’. Well, there isn’t really an answer. I’m just doing it for the experience tbh! I will be doing a full post on it hopefully by next Saturday as I am only doing it for a week (1st – 7th Feb)… I don’t think I could go for much longer!

Anyway, since I made the decision to go vegan, I’ve been a busy baker, having made both carrot cake and red velvet cupcakes (they are super yum)! The carrot cakes were great but not as fab as the red velvet’s!!!!!! (hence why I’m blogging them). These are a Mary Berry recipe but with the vegan AND gluten free twist I created! All the other vegan red-velvet cupcake recipes are not straight forward and you need all kinds of crazy, expensive ingredients to go in them, however me being me (lazy and broke), I took the easy route and made it my own from a basic recipe.

Ingredients for the sponge: 

• 100g dairy free butter (I used Flora)
• 150g caster sugar
• 125g GF SR flour
• 25g cocoa powder
• 2 flax eggs (2 tbsp flax seeds & 6 tbsp water)
• 2 tablespoons soya milk
• 10ml red food colouring

Ingredients for the icing:

• 50g dairy free butter (Flora again)
• 200g dairy free cream cheese
• 300g icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

METHOD for cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees and line a muffin tin with about 12 cases.
2. Measure and mix together all of the cupcake ingredients in a bowl until the mixture is smooth
3. Using a teaspoon, put the batter into the cases evenly. I’d use maybe 2tsp per case ish, dependent on how much there is left over!
4. Bake them in the oven for around 20-25 minutes. Once the timer goes off, stick a knife or chopstick in the middle of the cupcakes to check they are cooked through.
5. Once they are out of the over, put them on a rack to let them cool.

METHOD for icing:

1. For the frosting, measure all ingredients into a bowl or food processor and mix til smooth and not too runny.
2. Put it in a piping bag if you’re feeling risky n fancy and pipe the icing onto the cupcakes. (Instead of a piping bag, you could use a knife or teaspoon and spread it on.

These are super easy to make and super yummy so I recommend you do try them, even if you do them non-vegan/gluten free!!!

G