Spring Celebration Cupcakes

A simple decorating idea to welcome Spring, although I’m not really sure Spring came to the party because it is snowing right now here in Vermont. The wonders of New England haha.  But these cupcakes, so bright and cheerful, lifted my spirits.  There’s something about cupcakes that bring smiles to every face, so I shared the cupcake happiness with friends and saw many much-needed smiles!

Cake & Cupcake decorating as a vegan can be quite the frustrating adventure and this one was no exception.  I was super excited to find jellybeans not made with gelatin, but in my giddiness, I didn’t really really really check to see if they were vegan.  In my defense, the company makes vegan gummy worms and other candies, so it made sense to me that the jellybeans would be vegan.  And so I got my decorating on and had a blast creating little mini-mosaics on top of each cupcake, and then while throwing away the empty jellybean bag, I noticed very specifically that it said Vegetarian.

My heart instantly sunk.  This is a company that knows the difference between vegetarian and vegan and if they only listed it as vegetarian there was a reason. I read the ingredients several more times, trying to figure out what the heck could be animal based, to no avail. So I found the company online and sent them an email inquiring.  Well, I learned something new when they responded, and now I’m sharing it with you because, well, ewww: Confectioner’s Glaze is shellac and it’s made from insect secretions…mmm. (it’s vegetarian because it’s considered to be in the same category as honey).

Don’t fear though, vegan jelly beans do exist so you can still make these cute cupcakes.  A google search found two kinds of Vegan Jellybeans, but please let me know if there are others!

For the frosting, I tried my hand at dying with natural colors, with minimal, but not completely unsatisfactory results.  The colors were very faint and are hard to see in the pictures, but it worked out fine and the frostings didn’t distract from the vibrance of the jellybeans. I used a little bit of pureed mango to get the yellow/orange and pureed and strained cherry juice for the pink-ish purple.  Need to experiment with this more!

The marble cupcakes are super easy to make and are the perfect vessel for springtime cheeriness.

Marble Cupcakes

• 1/2 cup vegan butter or margarine, room temperature
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup (6 oz) plain unsweetened soy yogurt
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup non-dairy milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup melted vegan chocolate or chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Line a 12-cup muffin pan with cupcake liners.
2. Beat the vegan butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
3. Mix in the yogurt until just combined.
4. In medium bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.
5. In a separate bowl, mix the non-dairy milk and vanilla.
6. Add the flour mixture to the batter in three additions, starting with the flour and alternating with the non-dairy milk, continuing until they are all fully incorporated.
7. Stir in the melted chocolate, swirling it through the batter.
8. Divide batter evenly among the liners and bake for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
9. Let cool completely before decorating.

Frosting

• 1 cup vegan butter or margarine, room temperature
• 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• jellybeans for decoration
• flaked coconut for decoration
• sliced almonds for decoration

If you want to color your frosting, puree or mash a couple of tablespoons of cherries and strain them to make 3/4-1 tsp juice. Do the same with mangoes (I used thawed frozen mango) and any other fruit you want to try!  Just be careful adding the juice to the frosting, add it a little at a time or the frosting with curdle.  You can see with the mango one that I added a bit too much and it curdled a little bit.

1. Beat the vegan butter until smooth, then add the powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time.
2. Add the vanilla and mix well.
3. Add the food colorings if desired.

Decorate the cupcakes and share some springtime warmth!