Vegan red velvet cupcakes

Breakfast: A beet and carrot smoothie

Lunch: Couscous and grilled veggies in a tomato sauce

Dinner: Tofu Penang curry followed by vegan red velvet cupcakes

It's the time of year that you get home from work and it's already dark, and all you want is a cup of tea and a treat. Well, to be honest, that's most of the year in our house, but nevertheless, it seems somewhat more justified at the end of November.

I made a vegan red velvet cake for my friend Jamool's birthday a couple of weeks ago, and it went down  so well that I decided to make the more lazy cupcake version for a meal again this week. Everyone loves a red velvet, after all.

You'll need:
(Makes 12 cupcakes)

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup almond milk
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp red food colouring
pinch of salt

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius
Pour the almond milk and vinegar together in a bowl and set aside for 5 minutes
Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, salt and baking powder
Stir the oil, vanilla essence and food colouring into the milk mixture
Stir the milk mixture into the flour mixture until just combined
Divide between 12 cupcake cases and bake for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean
Top with vanilla vegan buttercream frosting and serve to your hungry friends!

Interestingly, the red colour of these cakes originally came from the reaction between the cocoa and an acidic ingredient like buttermilk, although some have also used beets to get the colouring. The cheat's way, of course, is to use food colouring - and hey, it's winter. I'm cheating.

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