I like a challenge. Particularly when it pushes me out of my baking comfort zone. Having a vegan brother-in-law does mean I have to get a lot more creative. I've made vegan brownies, mojito cupcakes - and awakened his mojito obsession (soz Hannah), and even a vegan cheesecake using soaked cashews, but this time I needed to make something suitably fancy and chocolatey for my sister's 30th, and vegan-friendly for her husband, thus the idea for chocolate, coconut and passion-fruit cupcakes was born.
As it turns out, passion-fruit are extremely hard to find in Bristol at the moment, but after much traipsing and researching, and a test bake I slightly forgot about while watching Rick and Morty, here is the recipe I used:
You will need:
200g of self-raising flour
200g of caster sugar
3-4 tbsp of cocoa powder
4 tbsp of vegetable/sunflower oil
250ml cup of cold soya/almond milk
1 tsp of vanilla extract
1 tbsp of lemon juice
1 can of coconut cream(pop this in the fridge preferably 24 hours before you need to make the icing)
200g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp honey
3-4 passion-fruit to decorate
Equipment:
cupcake tin
cupcake cases
electric mixer (seriously, you don't want to be whipping by hand)
ice cream scoop (optional but really handy)
mini palette knife (again, optional, but v useful)
Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 180°/160° fan & line your tin
2. Mix together the sugar, oil, milk, vanilla and lemon juice. Make sure the milk is cold or the mixture may curdle.
3. Sieve in the cocoa powder and flour together in 2 stages, mixing in-between additions until fully incorporated.
4. Using your ice cream scoop (or spoon), place one scoop's worth of mixture into each paper case, and bake until tops are springy and a skewer comes out clean. (I didn't time them, I went by instinct, sorry! But I'm guessing around 12-15 minutes before you first check on them?).
5. Meanwhile... turn the can of coconut cream upside down before you open it, then drain off the coconut water for another day.
6. Add icing sugar (sieved), honey and vanilla extract to coconut cream and whip it, whip it real good! Then pop it back in the fridge until you're ready to serve, then ice, leaving a dip in the centre, fill well with passion-fruit and enjoy
Stray thoughts:
I carted these cupcakes around London for about 12 hours before they got to their destination so they did look rather distressed. If making again I'd be tempted to add some white chia seeds to the icing mix to give it some extra stability.