Martha with a Twist: Test Kitchen: Vegan Cupcakes

An invite to a weekend dinner party and all the recent press about vegan chef Chloe Coscarelli's cupcake challenge win on the Food Network inspired me to (try to) make two of Chloe's winning cupcake recipes for the dinner party. The recipes for the raspberry tiramisu cupcake and the chocolate strawberry shortcake cupcake are available on her blog here and here.

My attempts were definitely only partial successes, at best. They tasted good (not great), but what really set them apart, compared to the beautiful idealized versions on Chloe's blog, was that they were entirely lacking in the looks department. I'm guessing that something when wrong with the frosting because my versions came out resembling something closer to Cinnabon icing than buttercream frosting -- all drippy and tooth-numbingly sweet, without any of the fluffy volume I had hoped for. Admittedly, probably compounding the drippy-frosting-problem was the 45-minute drive in a sun-baked car that the cupcakes had to endure to get to the dinner party -- by the time we ate them, they were mostly just gooey, sweet blobs.

I'm not sure I would use either of these cupcake recipes again, at least not in their entirety. The base recipes for the plain vanilla and chocolate/espresso cupcakes are fine, but neither wowed me enough to prevent me from wanting to try out other recipes. And it goes without saying that I am still in search for a better frosting recipe. But on the plus side, I will undoubtedly find a way to incorporate the amazing raspberry sauce (from the raspberry tiramisu cupcake recipe) in other dishes (layered into soy yogurt parfaits, drizzled over vanilla soy ice cream, or as a topping for vegan waffles and pancakes!). It was hands-down the best aspect of either of the two cupcakes (though sadly, the raspberry sauce got completely lost among the other competing flavors in the tiramisu cupcake).