Where the Wild Things Are Cupcakes

In honor of the movie, Where the Wild Things Are, and for a friend who sold me a mini-fridge, I created these lovely little Max's and wild things.

Because sometimes it seems like dorm kitchen=fail, especially when you try to bake vegan cupcakes, and someone is roasting steak on the oven rack below (but more on this later), I went over to CCA to bake. Since the CCA kids are expected to cook all their own meals, they have an amazing kitchen setup.

The recipe is my usual altered chocolate cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, with peanutbutter-based frosting, cashews, and twizzler candies as hair.

Cooking in the Dorms - A Delicious Chocolate/Kidney Bean/Tofu Cake

Continuing to blog while living in the college dorms was more concerning to me than fears of going somewhere new to start a new chapter of my life.  Where would I obtain access to a stove and oven?  It all seemed like a lot of fuss and hassle.

However, it can be done.  Using the communal kitchenette on the first floor of my dorm building, some friends and I had a delicious experience baking a chocolate vegan cake using a modified version of the Black bean chocolate cupcakes with tofu frosting based on the ingredients we could find.

How we obtained our ingredients is rather exciting.

We bought miniature sized four, sugar, and canola oil from the store, along with baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder, and chocolate chips.  Confectioner's sugar, vanilla, and maple syrup was borrowed from fellow college students.  Visiting friends were able to provide cake pans, spatulas, utensils, and pots in which to mix our ingredients.

In order to save money, we used my meal points to buy takeout from the dining commons.  Unfortunately, the dining commons was all out of black beans by the time we got there, so as a last minute decision, we decided to substitute kidney beans.  (Our options were: kidney, soy, or garbanzo beans)  We filled a box full of tofu and kidney beans, and a cup full of soymilk.  I couldn't help but smile at the other college kids shooting us funny looks.

We did have access to a food processor, but we forgot to bring it with us when a group of us, en masse regrouped in my dorm room.  Thus, we decided to mash the kidney beans by hand, instead of in a blender.

Mashed kidney beans plus wet ingredients. (above)

(below) Dry ingredients and wet ingredients.

While the cake was in the oven, we started on the chocolate tofu frosting.  

Again, sans-blender/food processor, we had to resort to mashing the tofu by hand.  It took significantly longer than expected to achieve a fine enough texture.

At this point, we realized we didn't have enough pots and pans to set up a double broiler for the chocolate chips AND hold the tofu, so we switched over to a tupperware.

Double broiler on the stove, full of melted chocolate.

The cake was such a hit that I didn't even have a chance to take a picture of it before people started eating.  You wouldn't be able to guess that the secret ingredients are kidney beans and tofu.  This cake is perfect for a late night dormitory snack, coupled with some delicious vegan ice cream!

Both my vegan and non-vegan friends present absolutely loved this recipe.  Although I was initially a little concerned about using kidney beans as replacement for black beans, it worked out well!

Is it candy or is it a puzzle?

During my last trip to Japan, I bought this chocolate candy themed puzzle. If you carefully read the packaging in Japanese, it states that this is a puzzle; however if you're familiar with the chocolate takenoko mushroom shaped snacks, you'll notice the box looks very similar to that of a Japanese snack.

Basically this is the coolest puzzle in the world.

Black Bean Chocolate Cupcakes with Tofu frosting

These cupcakes are nutrient rich with black beans and banana hidden inside them. Admittedly, they end up tasting somewhat like chocolate banana bread, but they're tasty nonetheless. You can't even taste the beans. I modified the recipe which I found on Madhuram's Eggless Cooking website, which originally called for a prune puree that sounded too bizarre even for me, thus the banana as an egg substitute. The tofu mousse frosting is from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and it is for the adventurous. Daring bakers only.

Black Bean Chocolate Cupcakes
makes 16 cupcakes

1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 banana, mashed

2 tablespoons water

1/6 cup canola oil

one 15.5oz can of black beans, drained, rinsed, and pureed

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line muffin tin with paper liners.

Drain the black beans from the can, rinse well under running water, and puree it in a food processor/blender using approximately 1/4 cup of water. The puree should be very smooth without any lumps. Add the sugar, mashed banana, 2 tablespoons of water, canola oil and vanilla extract. Process/blend it again for another 2-3 minutes. Transfer it to a large bowl.

In a small bowl whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients in 3 parts, mixing well after each addition.

Pour into muffin tin, filling each cup 3/4 full. Bake for approximately 14 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting.

Chocolate Tofu Mousse Frosting
makes enough to frost 30 cupcakes

1 package extra firm tofu, drained of liquid.
1/4 cup soymilk
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (12 oz) package of semisweet chocolate chips

Puree tofu in blender until completely smooth. This step is the most important because if you don't blend enough, you will end up with chunks of tofu in your frosting. These chunks are unappetizing to all but the most intense soy-lovers. Add soymilk, syrup, and vanilla.

In a double broiler, melt chocolate chips. You can use two nesting pots in place of a double broiler with the chocolate chips in the top pan and water in the bottom pan. After the chocolate has melted, cool for 5 minutes and then add to the tofu and blend.

Transfer to an airtight bowl and chill for an hour.

Something else to try with any extra melted chocolate is to draw on a wax paper covered cookie sheet. Place your drawings in the freezer, and when they harden, you can use them as decorations for your cupcakes. Note the beautiful cactus cupcake and the cupcake cupcake below.

Chess Cupcakes

These cupcakes were made for a special Cupcake Chess match. The rules of cupcake chess are exactly the same as regular chess, but with a couple key differences:

1. When you capture one of your opponents pieces, you must eat it, or find someone to eat it.
2. A couple extra queen cupcakes must be made for pawn promotions. If you run out of the appropriate color of queens for pawn promotions, no more can be made.
3. You may allow some of your pieces to be captured so you can eat them.


The following cupcake recipes are from Vegan Cupakes Take Over the World:

Chocolate Mint Cupcakes
makes 24 mini-cupcakes

1 cup soymilk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/6 cup canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Golden Vanilla Cupcakes
makes 24 mini-cupcakes

1 cup soymilk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/6 cup canola oil
2 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Follow the same procedure for both the Chocolate Mint and Golden Vanilla Cupcake Recipes.

Preheat oven to 325°F and line muffin tin with cupcake liners.

Whisk soymilk and vinegar together and set aside for a few minutes to curdle.

Add sugar, oil, and vanilla extract. Beat until foamy.

Sift together remaining ingredients and add in two batches to wet ingredients. Beat well and fill cupcake liners 3/4 full. Bake 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Cupcakes for a Party (x2)

On Sunday I baked green tea cupcakes and chocolate cupcakes to take to two parties. They're frosted with marshmallow frosting, and decorated with strawberries and animal crackers.


Some alterations I made to the previous recipes are:
1. I used margarine in the frosting, instead of butter. The frosting turned out thinner than I had hoped, and would not stay in the chrysanthemum shapes featured in the last post.
2. The Green Tea Cupcakes were made with regular flour instead of rice flour, and rice milk instead of soymilk.

I really had a lot of fun experimenting with decorations, as you can see below. My favorite is the octopus shaped out of pieces of strawberry!

Sprinkles Cupcakes

My wonderful sister bought me a Sprinkles Cupcake today as a thank you for driving her places. Although I didn't bake these, I decided to post a cupcake review of the varieties we tried today.

At $3.25 a pop, these cupcakes are pretty pricey.

My sister bought the Red Velvet and the Black and White Cupcake.

Red Velvet:
I found the cake part of this cupcake to be pretty good. It was moist, and slightly above average as far as red velvet cakes go. The Frosting, I believe, was cream cheese based, and it complemented the cake nicely. However, the frosting was incredibly sweet; almost too sweet at times. Luckily I had a nice glass of soymilk to help me wash down all that sugar.

Black and White:
The chocolate cake of this cupcake was average. After eating my own chocolate cupcakes over the weekend which are significantly less rich, and less greasy, I have to admit I was a bit underwhelmed. The frosting was some kind of a buttercream, and it was teeth-tingling sweet. In my book, this is somewhat of a bad thing. I did not like this cupcake as much, because of the frosting.

All in all, the Red Velvet gets a 4 star rating from me, and the Black and White gets a 2.5.
These cupcakes are definitely superior to the Safeway/local supermarket variety, but they are still inferior to some of the homemade treats I've tasted.

Chocolate Rain Cupcakes

These cupcakes were inspired by a friend who asked for Chocolate Rain cupcakes for his birthday. Literally, it's a reference to Chocolate Rain, a youtube video with 39,000,000+ views by Tay Zonday.

'Chocolate' practically requires a chocolate cupcake, and 'rain' connotates a great flood where only two of each animal were saved on a boat. This explains my post earlier this week about the animal crackers.

After much deliberation, I settled on a chocolate cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World with Green tea glaze frosting, to represent a dirt hill covered in grass. Animal crackers graze, while a light chocolate rain falls down upon their backs.

Chocolate Rain Cupcakes
makes 12 cupcakes

1 cup soymilk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/6 cup canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 325°F and line muffin tin with cupcake liners.

Whisk soymilk and vinegar together and set aside for a few minutes to curdle.

Add sugar, oil, and vanilla extract. Beat until foamy.

Sift together remaining ingredients and add in two batches to wet ingredients. Beat well and fill cupcake liners 3/4 full. Bake 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.


Prepare the green tea glaze, and frost the top of each cupcake. Then, place one animal cracker on top of each cupcake.


In a double broiler, melt semisweet chocolate chips. When melted, drizzle your chocolate rain. Enjoy!