To celebrate my birthday this week, I wanted to go see family in Los Angeles. Holly’s family and I had way too much fun trick or treating last year for me to miss it…
This year, our mom and brother are going to join us! Besides celebrating Halloween, we are celebrating something else very, very special. There is another birthday in the family – Holly’s third little girl was born this week!
October is a special month so we celebrate with cupcakes. Naturally sweet, vegan cupcakes. Oh my.
I didn’t miss a single egg or trace of dairy in these dense little cakes. Actually, after the first bite, I completely forgot they were healthier!
The best part about these cupcakes is the combination of dark chocolate and peanut butter. Enough words have been said about how brilliant those two flavors are together. However, there can never be enough pictures to illustrate it!
End October on a sweet note. Make cupcakes, celebrate happy moments and have a great Halloween!
Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting (vegan)
Print Recipe
Chocolate Cupcakes:
1 cup Spelt Flour
3/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder
1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon Sea or Pink Salt
3 Tablespoons Earth Balance Butter, softened
1/4 cup Applesauce
2 Tablespoons Ground Flax
1 1/4 cups Coconut Sugar
2 teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract
1 cup unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
In a small bowl, mix the applesauce and flax together. Set aside. Line a cupcake pan with liners. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium sized bowl. Set aside.
In a large bowl, add butter, applesauce and flax mixture and coconut sugar. Mix until well combined. Add the vanilla and mix. Add the dry ingredient mixture to the wet mixture, alternating with the almond milk. Mix until combined, but be careful to not over mix. The batter should look like a chocolate pudding. Fill the cupcake liners a little more than 3/4 the way full. Bake at 350 for 12 to 14 minutes. Let cool10 minutes before removing from the pan and at least another 5 before frosting.
Heaping 3/4 cup Creamy Natural Peanut Butter
1 cup Coconut Sugar or 1/2 cup Coconut Sugar & 1/2 cup Maple Sugar
4 Tablespoons Earth Balance Butter, softened
1 teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract
1 Tablespoon Almond Milk
1-2 Tablespoons Spelt Flour*
Directions:
In a small bowl, heat up the peanut butter and coconut sugar in the microwave for 40-50 seconds, stirring every 10 seconds. Make sure to stir thoroughly with each stirring session. You don’t want to completely melt the peanut butter but you want the coconut sugar to fuse smoothly into it. When the peanut butter and sugar is a smooth mass, put it in the bowl of an electric mixer or mixing bowl. Add the butter and vanilla and until smooth and fluffy. Add flour, one tablespoon at a time. The amount of flour you need depends on how firm or oily your peanut butter is. Cream until smooth and delicious. Pipe onto cooled cupcakes and celebrate!
*The flour is used to help firm the frosting to pipe without having to use more sugar. The flour amount can be increased or decreased based on how firm or runny you’d like it.
I made 12 cupcakes from this recipe, but the batter could be stretched to make 14 if desired.
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Cathy says
Hi…these cupcakes look amazing! I may be reading too much into this but the flax, is that whole seeds or ground? and, have you ever used powdered peanut butter in these ( not sure I want to but wanted to ask)?
Annie says
Hi Cathy, this is ground flax! We will change that in the recipe to be more specific. We usually buy whole flax seeds and grind them up ourselves, but purchased ground flax will work great too. We haven’t used powdered peanut butter… the products we’ve seen usually have sugar in them, so we haven’t ventured that way. I’m sure you could experiment with it though in this frosting recipe and it would turn out great. Thanks for the comment!
Shayla says
That “little” cupcakes is the best of them all. These look delicious and what an amazing recipe to be vegan.
Annie says
Thank you, Shayla! :)
Rachael says
YUMMO!!!! I could eat just the frosting alone.
Jessica says
These were just the cupcakes I was looking for! These are so moist and dense. But they were not super dense like some vegan cakes, they were airy and light. I’ve had vegan cupcakes that are more like muffins with frosting on top. These are perfectly cake like! We loved the peanut butter frosting on top!! Great job!
Sarah says
Can I use regular cow’s milk with these?
Annie says
Hi Sarah,
Yes you can! Any milk that you’d like to use would be fine. Thanks!
Aubrey says
Oh my goodness, thank you for posting! These cupcakes are going to be brought to my friends’ party. They are going to love them!