:Kalliope Lane

I finally made the fabulous Fauxstess Cupcakes from Vegan with a Vengeance! Since I love reading the kitchen chronicles of others, I took lots of pictures so I could write this up in proper fashion.

It seems I need to always cook my cupcakes a little longer than Isa’s recipes say (the oven thermometer I have says my oven’s 350 is 350, but apparently they’re both off). My first batch was sticky and a little underdone. I used rice milk, and the batter had been very thin.

So I made a second batch the next day, which worked out well since the frosting recipes make enough for at least two batches. My second batch had great texture. I used half soy milk, half rice milk, and this time it even frothed up when I mixed it with the mixer. I added an extra heaping tablespoon of flour, and this time the batter was much more how I thought it should be (and more like the batter on the PPK episode I saw).

Here they are unfrosted, both dark & shiny from the flash,

and slightly out of focus without:

Ah, the frosting. Frosting and I don’t get along.

The first night, I used Earth Balance sticks, Spectrum shortening, and sugar that I THOUGHT was superfine/caster, but it wasn’t. It remained a soupy, melty, gritty glob that wouldn’t get fluffy. I made another batch and fixed the sugar problem, but I still got no fluff, no aeration, no nothing. By then it was late and I thought the heat may have been affecting the outcome, so I called it a night.

The next day I made the second batch of cupcakes and tried the frosting again. This time I gave up on the Spectrum shortening and used Crisco instead, with EB sticks and superfine sugar. I finally got fluffy frosting, but the grit of the sugar never went away. It still tasted good. Just gritty. Next time I’m going to try it with powdered sugar instead.

Filling the cupcakes was super easy. I got a cheap decorating starter kit from Jo-Ann’s and had fun piping in the fluff. I used the microwave technique for the ganache, and it worked just fine.

Here they are, just having been dipped:

After setting in the fridge:

I had a hard time finding the right consistentcy for the decorative frosting, but they turned out quite pretty:

See how pretty they are? Well, it’s too bad they didn’t stay that way.

After a day or two, the curliecues seemed to get absorbed into the ganache frosting, and all that was left were ghosts of the little curlies. Weird.

Maybe it was my chocolate, which was rather soft. Maybe I needed a stiffer white frosting. Who knows. I’ll experiment next time…

The final verdict was that they were DELICIOUS, and really not that hard to make. Much easier than all of the steps imply. My parents were over for dinner and really enjoyed them and got a kick out of the name. My mom, not knowing what they were called, initially said, “they’re like the cupcakes you used to take in your lunches.”

We determined they tasted best and had the best texture when at room temperature, so we’d take them out of the fridge 10-15 minutes before we wanted to eat them.

I actually made these at the beginning of June, and just took this long to get the post up. I’ve since made the Coconut Heaven cupcakes too, which were a huge hit (although I had some frosting issues with those, also).

Isa is a genius! Buy the book! Make the cupcakes!