Recipe: Pumpkin cupcakes with colored sugar glaze

Suitable for: a vegan diet

Makes: 2 dozen average sized cupcakes

These are perfect Halloween cupcakes - though good other times of the year too. I used to make them with eggs, but since I went vegan, I've adapted them this year and it actually worked.

You can frost them if you like. I'm not a fan of frosting, so I used sugar glaze, because it's lighter, but still sweet. The kids and adults at my house love these.

Ingredients for pumpkin cupcakes

2 cups organic flour - I used 1/2 whole wheat organic pastry flour and 1/2 white organic flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon coarse salt

1 and 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 and 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1 cup packed brown organic sugar

1 cup granulated organic white sugar

1 cup organic vegan "butter" (I used Earth Balance Whipped), melted and cooled

4 egg alternatives. I used 1 tablespoon flax seed + 3 tablespoons water for each "egg"

15 ounces organic pumpkin puree (homemade or canned is fine)

Mix your batter:

In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves.

In a larger bowl, whisk brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter and egg alternatives until smooth.

Add dry ingredients to the larger bowl and mix until smooth. Mix in pumpkin puree. Your batter will be pretty thick.

Baking:

Prep your pans. I usually use plain baking pans, without paper baking cup (don't like to waste paper). Sometimes I use reusable silicone baking cups. No matter what, lightly oil your baking pans or cups, then sprinkle with flour. Fill cups pretty full.

Bake in a 350 degrees oven for about 15-20 minutes or until the tops spring back a bit when touched.

Transfer to a wire cooling rack and let them cool completely before glazing or decorating.

Making the sugar glaze

If you make too much glaze at once, it’ll get stiff and gloppy in the bowl, so make it in two batches. One batch of glaze works for about 12 cupcakes.

To make your sugar glaze melt 4 tablespoons of organic Earth Balance Whipped in a small saucepan – don’t let it brown! When melted, pour over 1 and 1/4 cups of organic powdered sugar. Add 4-5 teaspoons of soy or other alternative milk, a dash of organic vanilla extract and whatever food color you like, and whisk until smooth.

Working VERY quickly, dip the top of each cooled cupcake into the glaze, swirl it a bit to let the glaze settle right and place your cupcake on a wire rack. If you make the glaze just right, the glaze will sit on top of the cupcake. If you make it too thin, it's going to drip some (see image below). The glaze shown in the picture was too thin because I ran out of powdered sugar, and in this case it drips off, so place a clean dishtowel under your rack. Repeat the glazing process with your other cupcakes.

This glaze will totally set in about a half hour to an hour. After it sets you can decorate your cupcakes with frosting if you like. If you want sprinkles or sparkles be sure to add them while the glaze is still wet.

Storage:

These keep well for a few days – even glazed. If needed, they could likely be frozen, but I would freeze them glaze-free. These are wonderful warm, right out of the oven, but also taste good cooled.

Some decor notes:

I usually use natural food coloring for my cakes - I like Chocolate Craft colors best. To make a light orange glaze, use yellow and some red. To make a much brighter orange, use more red. This year I made light orange (image above), but last year I needed to make some for "pumpkin" cupcakes designs, so I went with a bright orange color glaze and used some thicker black glaze too (image below).

The black glaze shown below sucks though (not natural) if you do want to go natural, make a batch of the sugar glaze above, but add more powdered sugar for a thicker consistency that you can pipe onto cupcakes. Color it with a mix of natural blue and red food coloring. In the picture below, you can also see some dark purple glaze (on the swirl cupcakes), which you can get with some natural blue food coloring and a dash of red.