Little Cakes for a Big Birthday

For my boyfriend's birthday, I decided to surprise him with orange chocolate vegan cupcakes, which I found the recipe for on Vegetarian Times website.  I've made many cupcakes before, but this was the first time I was going to make a vegan version.  I was pretty surprised to see that avocado was the replacement for eggs and butter was a no-show in the recipe.  What really made me decide to try this recipe was that the glaze was made using soft tofu, which I would have never figured out by myself.     

Having the ability to grow your own tropical fruits is one of the best things about living on Guam.  Unfortunately, my family's avocado trees were bare and so I had to buy avocados at Micronesia Mall Pay-Less Supermarket.  If I had my way, I would have just plucked an avocado from our tree since they taste exceptionally better and are much larger than what's available at the grocery store.
The part that somewhat stumped me in the recipe was the instruction to purée the avocados in a blender until smooth.  For a small-time cook like me, I needed to know "How smooth was smooth?"  I just took a guess at it and luckily, the cupcakes turned out great.
The glaze frosting actually turned out better than I expected.  In fact, I think it's the best frosting I ever made in my short frosting making history.  It stayed on the cupcake like it's supposed to and tasted fantastic.  When I was shopping for the glaze ingredients, I couldn't find any vegan chocolate chips.  Instead, the best thing I could find was Dagoba Organic Chocolate Dark Chocolate Chocodrops, which I found at Simply Food.  By definition, dark chocolate has less milk than regular milk chocolate, and this one had a 73% cacao content.  Dagoba is also known as a certified Fair Trade chocolate company, so you can rest assure the chocolate wasn't made using slave labor.  

When I finished baking the cupcakes and dipping its tops in the glaze, I couldn't resist trying them and ended up eating 2 cupcakes.  Thank goodness I baked 24!  When I finally surprised my boyfriend with the cupcakes and told him what the ingredients were, he said he couldn't imagine those were ingredients because the cupcakes still tasted and looked like sweet non-vegan cupcakes.  I took this as an extremely positive review and will be looking for ways to make other types of cupcakes.  I picture red velvet vegan cupcakes in the near future...  

    

Orange Chocolate Vegan Cupcakes

Makes 24 cupcakes

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 avocados, pitted and peeled

1 1/2 cups pure maple syrup

1 1/2 cups plain almond milk (soy milk will work as well)

2/3 cup canola oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 teaspoons orange extract

GLAZE:

7 ounces soft tofu, drained and patted dry

3 tablespoons pure maple syrup

1 teaspoon orange extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

8 ounces dark chocolate, melted

To make cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350°F.  Line muffin pans with paper liners.  Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in bowl.  Purée avocado in blender until smooth.  Add maple syrup, almond milk, oil, vanilla, and orange extract, and blend until creamy.  Whisk avocado mixture into flour mixture.  Spoon batter into prepared cupcake cups.  Bake for 15 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center comes out with some crumbs attached.  Set out to cool.

To make glaze: Blend tofu, maple syrup, orange extract, and salt in blender until smooth.  Add chocolate to tofu mixture and blend until smooth.  Transfer to bowl.  Dip tops of cupcakes into glaze, pulling straight up from glaze to form peaks.