Cupcakes - no other title is needed!

I have a great belief that there's always a time and a place for cake! I've always had a sweet tooth, and cake to me is the ultimate comfort food. Any type is good (except coffee cake - yuck!), but I do have a particular penchant for a might fine cupcake.
Cupcakes have really been in fashion over the last few years, and it's not difficult to see why - the recipes tend to be simpler than a whole cake, take less time to cook and you can have variety and creative fun with one batch of mixture. A phenomena originating in the States, cupcakes have actually been around since the end of the 18th century, although their popularity really kicked in at the beginning of the 21st. There's two theories about the name - that they were originally baked in cups, or because the ingredients were measured in cups as opposed to weight. Either way, cupcakes are definitely superior to our little fairy cakes!
Of course, eating a plant based diet means no eggs, one key ingredient to the standard cupcake recipe. But does this mean then end to cupcake delights? Thankfully not!

We have a baking guru in our house - Ms Cupcake! She has the most delicious recipes, along with other larger cakes, that never fail to produce gorgeously light, melt in the mouth cupcakes. And I have to say that my daughter makes much better cupcakes than I do - or maybe cake just tastes better when someone else has made them!
Vegan cupcakes are actually much simpler to make than standard ones - it's just a matter of mixing up your dry ingredients, then your wet and finally combining them together in one big whoosh. There's no creaming or delicate stirring - in fact, over stirring is a definite no no as it overworks the gluten in the flour, making the cake heavy and dense. A lightly stirred batter results in light, fluffy cakes, no need for the leavening action of eggs.
Eggs also act as a binding agent; curdled milk also works well, that's dairy free milk of course! Most of Ms Cupcakes recipes use cider vinegar to sour the milk; that doesn't work for me unfortunately as due to my yeast sensitivity, I have to avoid fermented items. Lemon juice works as well, and gives a slightly tart contrast to the super sweet cakey flavour.
My daughter is often found whipping up a batch of these chocolate cupcakes and I have to say they are amazingly light and delicious, so much so I bet you might even prefer them to the standard cholesterol laden butter version. The recipe is pretty much the same as Ms Cupcake with a couple of slight alterations, but still completely dairy free and seriously delicious - give them a go and see what your tastebuds think. And just a little thought to leave you with - there's a mint choc chip cupcake which is just amazing…..
Chocolate cupcake (enough for 12 large cupcakes)

200ml non dairy milk
4 teaspoon cider vinegar/lemon juice
170g self raising flour
30g cocoa powder
200g caster sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
80mls organic rapeseed oil
1 tablespoon vanilla essence
Buttercream icing
75g dairy free margarine (e.g. Pure, vitalite)
1teaspoon vanilla essence
375g icing sugar
20-30mls dairy free milk
Preheat your oven to 180oC and get your muffin tins lined with cupcake wrappers. In a small bowl, mix the non-dairy milk and vinegar/lemon juice together and put to one side for 10 minutes to let it curdle a bit. In the meantime, get a large bowl and mix all the dry ingredients together until well combined. Add the curdled non-dairy milk oil and vanilla and mix together with a metal spoon really quickly (about 10 seconds) until just combined - it will be a bit lumpy.
Tap the bowl on the worktop to release the bubbles and stop the raising agents working too quickly then dollop the mixture into the cupcake cases, distributing equally. Pop the trays in the oven and bake for 15 minutes or so. Remove from oven and lay on a cooling tray until they are completely cold.
In another bowl, whisk the margarine and vanilla essence together until creamy then add half the icing sugar. Once well mixed, add the second half and mix well, adding a little dairy free milk to soften if too stiff. Decorate the cupcake tops with the icing and sprinkles of your choice.

Tasty cabbage - Indian style

One of the wonderful things about living in Southern India was the food. Dishes are simply classified into veg or non-veg, and the choice of veg dishes was vast! Using this classification, veg excludes egg but does include dairy, so eating dairy free was still a challenge. I often grilled a poor waiter about the potential dairy content of a dish, only to find it laden with paneer or ghee. I had to become very un-British and be very specific with my food order!
Eating at friends houses was much simpler,  once they knew what to avoid. And many of my Indian friends just loved to feed me, which was such a joy! They all had cooks who created these amazingly simple yet delicious dishes - 2 or 3 different ones for a light lunch! It was often a dhal, bean based curry and a dry vegetable dish (sauce, or gravy as they call it, is definitely more of a 'Britisher' requirement!). And I fell in love with stuffed parathas and freshly made chapattis; I still make heavy-handed attempts to make my own at home.

Pointed cabbage

One of my favourite simple dry vegetable dishes is called poriyal. It's basically a cooked vegetable - green bean, cabbage, carrot or a mixture of different ones - garnished with a tasty tempering and grated coconut. It's ever so simple to make and is gorgeously tasty.
Cabbage has been a dominant feature of my veg box just recently; cabbage poriyal makes a tasty change to plain simply steamed cabbage or one of my many versions of coleslaw!
One of the wonderful cruciferous family, cabbage is amazingly good for you, particularly if it's steamed rather than boiled to death as per school dinners! It's packed full of phytonutrients that help protect against cancer, loads of fibre which will help reduce cholesterol levels and vitamin C, a natural antioxidant. On top of that, it has a whole variety of B vitamins, potassium and manganese. So it is definitely good to eat your greens!
Tempering is a method used in Indian cooking in which the whole spices are heated in oil (or ghee) until the aromas are released then poured on top of the dish prior to serving. Briefly cooking at a high heat releases the essential oils in the spices, and therefore their delicious flavour. If you want to be low or no fat, omit the oil and just heat in a non-stick pan - once the mustard seeds start popping, add the other spices and turn off the heat whilst still stirring. This stops the spices singeing but still releases their flavour. Give this a go and see what you think - you won't find it in your local curry house, that's for sure!
Cabbage poriyal

Cabbage poriyal

1 tablespoon oil
1 medium sized cabbage, finely chopped
2 tablespoons grated coconut, fresh or frozen (defrosted)
tempering:
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1 teaspoon urad dahl (split lentils)
pinch asafedtida
ginger chilli paste
1 red chilli, chopped
5 curry leaves
salt
tumeric
fresh coriander
Steam the cabbage until just done. When it's nearly ready, heat the oil in a pan and toast the mustard seeds. Once they start to splutter, add the grad dahl, turmeric and asafoetida. Once you can smell the gorgeous aromas, add the chilli and curry leaves, stir briefly then turn off the heat. Continue to stir for a moment then mix the tempering into the cabbage along with the coconut and ginger chilli paste (if you so desire). Season with a tiny sprinkle of salt if you need to, garnish with fresh coriander and serve alongside another veg dish such as a dahl and freshly cooked chapattis. Enjoy!