Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

I've been in a really dessert-y mood lately, so please forgive all of the sweets! I hope to post more savory dishes soon. These are red velvet cupcakes that I doctored up from a box. I don't normally use boxes when baking, but Sam wanted to these and I couldn't refuse. I looked around at how to veganize a cake mix and eventually just did my own thing. It worked really well for this particular mix, but I don't know if it would work on others. I also have a recipe for doctored-up cream cheese frosting from a can-- with no Tofutti! My store doesn't carry it and it seems expensive so I never get it but this frosting is delicious without out it!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Ingredients:

Dry:

- 1 box Duncan Hines red velvet cake mix

- 0.5 tsp baking powder

Wet:

- 1.25 cups unsweetened soymilk

- 2 T apple cider vinegar

- 0.5 cup unsweetened applesauce

- 6 T light margarine, melted

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F and set up cupcake liners in a cupcake pan. This recipe made 21 cupcakes for me, so I had to do it in batches for my 12 spot cupcake pan.
2. Whisk together the baking powder and the cake mix in a mixing bowl.
3. Combine the vinegar and soymilk in a jar and let sit for a few minutes, them screw the lid on and shake (you can probably just mix it up with a fork or something). This creates a vegan buttermilk substitute.
4. Add the "buttermilk", applesauce, and margarine and whisk well to combine (I just used a fork to be honest).
5. Spoon into liners (about 2/3-3/4 full) and pop into the oven for about 22 minutes. Check with a toothpick for doneness-- there will still be a few crumbs on the toothpick, but nothing too liquidy.
6. Cool in preparation for frosting.

Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

- 1 can (or 2) Pillsbury cream cheese flavored frosting (Duncan Hines has one too, but I wasn't sure if it was vegan)

- 1 tsp lemon juice

- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Directions:

1. Empty the can into a bowl and use electric beaters to whip it.
2. Add the lemon juice and vinegar-- I thought this made the frosting taste even more like cream cheese, but Sam thought it was a bit too tart, so maybe decrease it to 1/2 or 1/4 tsp each or just use as is if you want.
3. Chill the frosting.
4. Fill a pastry bag with an open star tip and get started making cream cheese roses! (The frosting roses melted a bit after the pictures. This frosting is a little melty for this technique, so feel free to decorate however you want if the melty-rose look doesn't do it for you). But this technique is really awesome so go use it with some buttercream if you have any laying around! Tutorial here.

 Enjoy your cupcakes!

For 1 cupcake out of 21: cals: 124kcal | fat: 4.24g | carbs: 19.70g | prot: 1.56g

For frosting check out the can- I think about 140 for 2 T. The add-ins don't add many calories