Vegan Strawberry Cupcakes

It's the beginning of February, and this can only mean one thing: strawberry season in Florida is so close I can barely contain myself! I bought a pint of strawberries for this recipe, and I'm lucky they lasted as long as they did in my fridge. I sat in bed last night watching Freaks and Geeks in my underwear and had some spare heavy cream sitting in the fridge, so decided to make whipped cream to go with some strawberries. I used up every last ounce of my will power to limit the amount of strawberries I could eat (which came out to a minescule three...yeah, my will power is pretty awesome). I went through all this so I could make these cupcakes for you guys :)



They are heavenly. It's as if the fruit goddess and the god of baked goods had a lovechild. My sacrifice last night could not have paid off any more than it did when I bit into these cupcakes. If there's only one recipe on this blog you decide to make, I would recommend it be this one. I would also recommend eating one while they're still somewhat warm!



I didn't want to load these down with frosting for fear it would take away from the natural goodness of the strawberries, so there's just a simple glaze on these. If you are frosting's all time, biggest, number one fan, you can put frosting on them, but I recommend letting the strawberries be the star of this one. Recipe below!

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) vegan butter
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tsp vanilla extract
splash of lemon juice
1 cup vanilla almond milk
1 pint strawberries, diced fairly small

1 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp almond milk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, mix the dry ingredients together.

In a medium bowl, cream and butter and sugar together. Add the apple cider vinegar, vanilla extract, and lemon juice. Stir to combine. Add the flour mixture and stir until combined. Add the almond milk and mix until a uniform batter forms.

Stir in the strawberries. Then pour into a greased muffin tin so all 12 compartments are equally filled. Bake for abou 25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the middle of each cupcake comes out clean.

Let cool in pan for abou 15 minutes. Then transfer to cooling rack to finish cooling.

To make the glaze, combine the powdered sugar and almond milk. Stir until a paste is formed. If it's too stiff (i.e. not all the sugar can be dissolved) then add more almond milk by the 1/2 tsp. Remember, a little bit of liquid goes a VERY long way with powdered sugar. If it's too runny (i.e. it looks like soup), then add more powdered sugar by the Tbsp until a glue-like consistency is reached.

Drizzle the glaze over each cupcake and let it run down the sides. It will harden after a while. Consume immediately because you just can't wait any longer!