The Amy

Some of you might be wondering why this post is called "The Amy". But Amy, of course, will understand. I worked with Amy for around 6 months at my old job, but they've now sadly moved to Auckland! So I thought that I would make cupcakes to celebrate the last day Amy and I had together as well as the fact that it had been her birthday the week before. Then I remembered that Amy had recently decided to be vegan. Hm... It was a challenge but I thought I may as well give it a go! There seem to be an increasing number of vegans in the world, and vegan recipes were plentiful. I knew I'd have to buy some soy or rice milk, but heaps of recipes called for agave or other specialist vegan sugars/sweeteners or butter-type products. I found this recipe and thought it would work quite well. Amy loved them, she was so excited that she called her mum in the UK! I would advise chilling the frosting before using though, as it kind of melted a bit of my way to work. Luckily I took photos before I got to work! The reason behind the name to this post, is that Amy and I were joking about opening a cupcake shop and she asked if I would open a vegan one. I probably wouldn't have a whole vegan cupcake shop, but if this were ever in the distant future to happen, I said I would sell this cupcake and call it "The Amy". There you have it, Amy's Vegan Cupcakes. :)

Vegan Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cupcakes (The Amy)

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1 cup vegan brown sugar (in New Zealand, all Chelsea products are vegan)
1/3 cup cocoa powder, sifted
3/4t baking soda
1/4t salt
1/3 cup chocolate soy milk
1/4 golden syrup
1/4 vegan margarine
1/2 cup applesauce

2 cups vegan icing sugar
1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup rice milk
1t vanilla essence

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a standard muffin tin with cupcake liners. In a large mixing bowl, sift all the dry ingredients together. In a smaller mixing bowl, mix together the wet ingredients and pour them into the dry. Beat until combined. Spoon cupcake batter into liners until about 2/3 full. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Let cool for about 20 minutes and then frost the cupcakes.

Peanut Butter Frosting:
Mix wet ingredients well with a hand beater and then slowly add in dry ingredients. Add more icing sugar or rice milk until desired creaminess is reached.