Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes

This is a very old post from 2009 when I first tried Isa Chandra Moskowitz's chocolate cake recipe in the form of Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes. It's a very good vegan recipe, and I've since made it numerous times with various frostings. I'll update with some new frostings soon. Here's a new picture of the cupcakes. I used my square muffin pan for the last batch and skipped the liners completely.

Square Shaped Cupcake Pan

If you like the looks of the square shape, the pan I used is from Michael's. The brand is Celebrate It! What I like about that pan is it has deep cavities which measure about 1.4 inches. Chefmade has a similar one. The square cavities are perfect for people who like edge pieces of individual portions of things, plus they're just a nice change from the usual round muffins. The recipe will give you about 15 or 16 square shaped cupcakes.

Old Pictures

Below are the old pictures I first took when I made Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes. The frosting in the photo is an older vegan frosting recipe, but I've updated it to a more modern recipe that calls for vegan butter, which is a fairly readily available ingredient now.

Double Batch Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes
Adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World!

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes

2 cups (480 ml) soy milk (these days I use almond milk)
2 teaspoon (10 ml) apple cider vinegar or regular vinegar
2 cups (9 oz/250 grams) all-purpose flour
⅔ cup (60 grams) unsweetened natural cocoa powder (Dutch is okay too)
1 ½ teaspoon (7 ml) baking soda
1 teaspoon (5 ml) baking powder
½ teaspoon (2 ml) salt
1 ½ cup (295 grams) granulated sugar
⅔ cup (180 ml) vegetable oil
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract

Fluffy Frosting
½ cup vegan butter such as Miyoko's or Earth Balance, softened
1 ½ cups powdered sugar
¾ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 to 2 tablespoons soy or any vegan milk

Preheat oven to 350°F (176 C). Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.

Stir or whisk whatever non dairy milk you are using and vinegar together in a large mixing bowl. Let it sit for a few minutes to curdle.

Meanwhile, thoroughly mix together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside.

Stir the sugar, oil and vanilla into the soy milk mixture and whisk until foamy.

Add half of the dry mixture (flour etc.) to wet mixture and stir very well until mixed – batter might be slightly lumpy, but try to remove the big lumps. Add remaining flour mixture and stir until mixed. Pour batter into muffin cups dividing evenly between all 24 cups and bake 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

For the vegan frosting, just beat the softened vegan butter with the powdered sugar. Scrape the bowl often. Beat in the vegan milk and flavorings. Beat and add sugar as necessary until you have a fluffy consistency. For the chocolate version, follow the same steps but use the following measurements: 4 tablespoons softened vegan margarine ½ cup sifted natural (not Dutch) cocoa powder, 1 ¼ cups powdered sugar, ¾ teaspoon vanilla and vegan milk as needed.

Recipe