Vegan Speculoos and Maple Syrup Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache

         So, the other night, my friend Kirby and I talked over beers, artichokes, and a lovely bonfire. This talk lasted well past 3 in the morning. We both realized from this how much we love baking, how interested we are in vegan cooking, and how obsessed the other was with Trader Joe’s Speculoos Cookie Butter. Of course, this immediately turned into plans to combine all three of these passions together. I had never participated in any vegan baking before, so I was extremely excited to try my hand at it; Kirby is quite the expert though. She has been vegan for quite awhile now, and has experimented with a wide variety of baked goods (apparently her specialties are cookies and banana bread ahhhh =^.^=).

         With a little help from the blasting of “Hunky Dory” and lots of coffee, we got started on our adaptation of The Post Punk Kitchen’s recipe for Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache.

We decided to scrap the vanilla part of the recipe, and instead added that divine speculoos, some maple syrup and a dash of almond extract. Here is our first trial of these spectaculoos (see what I did there? Oh dear God I’m hilarious) cupcakes. I hope all of you vegans and non-vegans alike enjoy it! I sure did, and I SWEAR these taste just like they have eggs and milk and all that jazz in it. They’re so moist and dense and sweet and ahhh I need to go eat another one now to shut my brain up, now that I’ve gotten to thinking about them. Anyways, have fun, stuff yourself silly, and be merry!

     

Ingredients:

For the cupcakes:
1 cup sweetened almond milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon almond extract

1 teaspoon maple syrup
3 tablespoons Trader Joe’s Speculoos Cookie Butter

For the ganache:
1/3 cup almond milk
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (add slowly, and use only as much as you see fit for your personal preference of thickness)
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup

Yields about 20 cupcakes.

 

Cupcake’n time:

<3 Preheat your oven to 350° F. Line your cupcake tin with baking cups and set aside.

<3 Stir the almond milk and apple cider vinegar together in a measuring cup and let sit for a few minutes so it can harness it’s super curdling powers.

<3 Sift the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl and mix with a wooden spoon or fork or whatevs.

<3 Beat together the almond milk/vinegar concoction, vegetable oil, sugar, almond extract and speculoos with your paddle insert. If you don’t have a KitchenAid (get on that!), then just whisk it together. 

 Mmmm check out that sweet, sweet mixin’ action

<3 Sift in the dry mixture of flour and whatnot and mix until no large lumps remain (I’d suggest using a wooden spoon if, once again, you’re deprived of a KitchenAid).

<3 Fill your ~hopefully~ cute cupcake liners two-thirds of the way up with batter and bake for 20 minutes.

(Mine match my apron AND my lipstick. You can’t get much cuter than that.)

<3 Press your finger lightly in the center of the cupcake to test if it’s ready; if the indent from your finger bounces back up, it’s good to go! If it stays inverted, bake for a minute or two longer. Transfer to a cooling rack (or just a plate because I know we all don’t have a fancy cooling rack [I know I don’t…]).

While you’re waiting for those tasty morsels to bake, you should utilize your 20 minutes to make the ganache!:

<3 In a double boiler (a.k.a a metal/glass bowl or a pot atop another pot of boiling water so as to prevent burning your precious chocolate), bring the almond milk just to boiling, then lower the heat to a simmer. Add your chocolate slowly so as to control the thickness of your ganache.

Some people enjoy it more runny, and others prefer it more thick. The less chips, the less thick. I’m one of those “the thicker the chocolate the better” sort of people, personally. Oh, and add that maple syrup, yo.

<3 Mix with a rubber spatula for about 30 seconds. Remove from heat, and then continue to stir until the chocolate is fully melted and it’s nice and smooth and stuff.

Putting all the magic together:
<3 Spoon giant globs of ganache onto your cupcakes. Really slather those suckers up. Or don’t, it’s cool. Whatever you like. If you want ‘em less sweet, then yeah, I don’t know why you’re on this blog. But anyways, do that. And then eat all of them immediately with a tall glass of almond milk and be the most content person in the universe.

Optional!:

<3 Spread some peanut butter on the cupcakes before adding the ganache! Or core a bit of the cupcake out and put that peanut butter inside for a delicious surprise.

<3 Sprinkle something pretty on top. I used pearl nonpareils. They are beautiful and give the cupcake a nice little crunch.

Let the snacking commence!

P.S. For all of you lovely gluten-free bakers out there:

I would substitute tapioca for the cornstarch, and use gluten-free flour, of course!