Oops, It's Vegan!

Once again, I'm here to report the results of a Kitchen Lab. There hasn't been any blogging for the past few days because I've been using cookbooks. On Saturday, the ol' mancandy made me dinner, and I used a cookbook to make a vegan pumpkin pie. I wound up making more pie filling than was required, and had probably something like 3/4 cup left. As the pumpkin I used came not from a can but from a lovely Michigan-grown gourd, it felt scandalous to throw out the leftovers. I decided that something simply MUST be done with them.

But what?



The answer took me some time to find, but I ultimately settled on pumpkin-filled chocolate cupcakes. The results were something less than beautiful, but they certainly are delicious and decadent. There are times when Kitchen Lab is a well thought-out process, where it is performed with scrupulous concentration. Then there are times where I just blunder my way through in order to get the damn thing done. That's what happened with these guys. It seems only appropriate that I share this recipe with you in the exact manner in which I created it.

The Ugly:


The Pretty:


Kitchen Lab Pumpkin Pie-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

I preheated my oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, I mixed

1 1/2 cups whole wheat white flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

In a small bowl, I mixed
2 Tbsp ground flax
3 Tbsp water

In the large bowl of dry ingredients, I made a well in the middle. In the well, I poured

1 cup sunflower oil
3/4 cup soymilk

I stirred this together. The batter was too clumpy, but it looked so chocolaty that I had to stick my finger in and lick some. Oops, I had forgotten to mix in sugar. Fuck! In an attempt to fix my error, I threw in 1 cup vegan cane sugar and 1/2 cup water. The consistency, and flavor, quickly improved. Finally, I mixed in the now globular flax. Realizing halfway through this that I didn't have cupcake liners, I spritzed a cupcake pan with coconut oil spray and put down a layer of batter in each tin. Over the bottom layer, I poured a very goopy dollop of pie filling, which immediately spread, thus indicating my cupcakes would be very much like a sandwich. I layered more batter on top. They were filled right to the brim of the cupcake pan, which I knew meant the tops would spread quite a bit. I didn't care. After taking the time to spread the chocolate on top over the pumpkin pie filling seeping up, I put them in the oven. Assuming that they would be tragic failures, I didn't really keep track of exact time and just checked on them here and there with a fork to see if they had cooked through. It probably took between 25 and 30 minutes, but I really can't be sure.



Anyways, they are DELICIOUS. Even if you don't have any leftover pumpkin pie filling, the chocolate part was stellar and you should give it a whirl. Do everything precisely wrong, the way I did, to guarantee success.