Vegan Halloween Cupcakes

With Halloween coming up this month I thought it would be fun to bake up some spooky cupcakes and share the recipe with you all on my blog. I never normally enjoy baking during the Summer months so I was really looking forward to putting my apron back on and getting back into the kitchen. 

After some initial thought I decided that carrot cake would be the most appropriate flavour for Halloween and I knew I wanted my icing to be a nice bright orange colour so as to be in keeping with the theme. I also wanted to add some spooky decorations to my cupcakes and after a quick look on Ebay I soon found a whole host of different vegan friendly creations to choose from. In the end I decided that I most liked the look of witches hats and black cats and I thought that these designs would stand out nicely on top of my cakes. But of course it's completely up to you how you choose to decorate your cakes at the end!

You Will Need

An oven 

A large mixing bowl 

A wooden spoon 

Measuring scales 

A measuring jug

A baking tray 

An electric hand mixer or a fork will suffice 

Icing bag or small spatula

Cupcake cases 

Ingredients For The Cake Mixture 

8 oz / 225g grated carrot 

6 oz / 170g sultanas or raisins 

5 oz / 140g SR white flour 

5 oz / 140g SR wholemeal flour 

6 oz / 170g sugar 

1 tsp cinnamon 

1 tsp ginger 

7 fl oz / 200 ml vegetable oil 

7 fl oz / 200 ml water 

pinch of salt 

dash of vinegar 

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Ingredients For The Icing 

6 oz / 170g icing sugar 

1/2 tsp vanilla essence 

3 oz / 115g vegan margarine 

Orange food colouring (Sainsbury's own brand vegan friendly) 

Method

Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5.

To make the cake, stir all the dry ingredients together and then mix the wet ones in.

Split your mixture evenly between your cupcake cases leaving a small amount of room at the top for them to rise.

Bake for approx 25 - 30 minutes, checking regularly. Poke a wooden stick / tooth pick into the middle of the cake to determine if it's cooked through. If the stick pulls out dry then it's done. If it's still wet leave cakes in for a little longer. 

Leave the cakes to stand for at least half an hour to cool down. 

To make the icing mash the sugar and vanilla essence into the margarine with a fork or mix together using a mixing tool. Add food colouring to reach desired level of orange colour.

Once your cakes have cooled down it's time to ice them!

Then top with decorations of your choice.

Now it's time to enjoy your cupcakes!

I really enjoyed baking these cupcakes, especially the decorating stage which is always my favourite part! I'd love to hear from you if you give making these cupcakes a go so comment below and tweet me your photos with your own creations. 

Being vegan doesn't mean that you have to miss out on all the sweet treats this Halloween. I am in fact in the process of putting together a 'Vegan Halloween Treats' post so keep an eye out next week for that one!

* Recipe taken from The Vegan Society website.