Chocolate Orange Vegan Cupcakes

Hello all!
A vegan recipe from my vegan cookbook. Of course you can substitute the vegan ingredients for non-vegan ones but vegan cupcakes do make a nice change from the heavier non-vegan ones.

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes
1 cup soy milk (rice milk will work, but soy milk curdles better -vegan buttermilk)
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar (can substitute lemon juice or white vinegar or brown rice vinegar works =3 )
3/4 cup organic granulated sugar (organic usually is not processed with animal bone char)
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup orange liqueur
1 cup all-purpose flour (again, organic is best)
1/3 cup cocoa powder (Dutch-processed is best)
1 Tbs finely grated orange peel (optional, depends how orangey you want it)
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degress F, and like the authors Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero remind us in every recipe, line your muffin pan right away with paper or foil liners.

2. Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar in a large bowl (this will be your main mixing bowl, I whisk them in my KitchenAid bowl) and let sit for a few minutes so the two may curdle.

3. Add the sugar, oil, extract, and liqueur to the soy milk mixture and beat until it is foamy. You want a nice layer of white froth covering the top. A KitchenAid is great for this because while your batter is mixing and frothing, you can start the next step.

4. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt (add the orange peel if you are using it). When I say 'sift together' I mean, set your sifter in the bowl you're using (not the soy milk mixture bowl) and start putting the ingredients in the sifter, but don't sift until all ingredients are added.

5. Add the dry mixture in two batches to wet ingredients and beat until no large lumps remain, and again, like the authors say, a few little lumps are okay.

6. Pour the mix (it will be kind of liquidy) into the liners, filling 3/4 of the way full. Bake 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Put them on your cupcake cooking rack, or a regular cooling rack and start working on the frosting! (It should make 12 cupcakes)

Orange Buttercream Frosting
1/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup margarine, softened (I recommend having it out while you're making the cupcakes)
2 cups confectioners' (powdered) sugar
2 Tbs orange juice
1 Tbs finely grated lemon zest (orange peel will work too)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp orange extract (I could not find orange extract so I used more orange juice and it tasted yummy still)

1. In a small bowl (again, I used my KitchenAid), cream the shortening and margarine until well combined.

2. Add the confectioners' sugar in roughly 1/2 cup additions.
After each addition of sugar, add a splash of orange juice and beat well with a handheld mixer on medium speed.

3. Add vanilla and beat for 3-5 minutes until smooth, creamy, and fluffy.

Make sure you cream the shortening and margarine well! And beat it for 3-5 minutes! I messed up on those two steps and you saw the result, tastes good, looks bad.

Until next time,

-Buhri