Deep Chocolate Vegan (Cup)Cake(s)

Sunday's "Family Dinner" was incomplete when we realized moments before guests were arriving, that we hadn't planned a dessert. Because we didn't want to run to the store we decided we needed a baked good that called for zero butter (as we were out). Brownies? Cake? We flipped to the dessert section of Moosewood and discovered a vegan cake recipe (pg. 242) that we actually had all ingredients on hand to make...sometimes vegan baking seems to equal an unusual ingredient here or there, but not this time.

We whipped up the batter and decided cupcakes would be best, so we used a cupcake pan instead of the called for cake pan. Upon tasting the batter we got a bit worried, as the cider vinegar was really strong, but hoped that would bake off and trusted the history of our successes with previous recipes from this book. It's just not one of those batters you're gonna want to lick the bowl clean of.

For the frosting we simply rigged up a double boiler to melt some bittersweet chocolate with a touch of cream (note NO LONGER VEGAN) and dipped each cooled cupcake into that for a smooth shiny finish. The cupcakes had an unusually crispy exterior with a delicate crumb, zero vinegar flavor, and tasted great!