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Vegan Halloween cupcakes with custard brains and cherry blood
I looked at vegan frostings and thought, it's all very very high in fat and sugar. As much as I have a guilty pleasure for cakes, I often stay away from cupcakes because of their even higher calorie content. So I was thinking of a way to make a really fun vegan cup cake for Halloween without excessive calories. At the moment I am totally into custard (must be the weather), so I realised there must be a way to make the custard dense enough to work as cupcake frosting. And it did work! The vegan blood is made from pitted sour cherries and cherry juice, super simple.
Have an amazing party!
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Not just a feast for the eyes! The perfect Halloween vegan treat to trick people.
Brains have never tasted this delicious!
So I baked my cupcakes (with pitted sour cherry in the middle) for 20 min, which is admittedly a bit too long, so they got a bit hard. Just over 15 minutes should be enough, but it depends on your oven. Do the toothpick test to check whether they are baked all the way (if dough sticks to the toothpick they will need a bit longer, if no dough sticks to it then they are ready to be served. Make sure you let them cool down before piping the vegan brains on them.
My vegan brains are made with super easy home-made vegan custard using only 4 ingredients. Couldn't get any easier.
Pipe the vegan brains onto the cupcakes using an icing bag.
'Drizzle' some cherry blood on the vegan brain cupcakes. I had a lot of fun doing it, my inner child really came out doing this.
Those cupcakes were such a great treat. They are filled with a pitted sour cherry and the combination of the cupcake, custard and cherry blood worked so well.
INGREDIENTS (24 cupcakes):
Vegan custard brain ingredients
- 2 cups of plant-based milk
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 50g icing sugar
- 50g cornstarch
Dry vegan cupcake ingredients:
- 300g flour (any that’s good for baking really)
- 150g brown sugar
- 6g baking powder (or 1 sachet of baking powder)
Wet vegan cupcake ingredients:
- 250ml plant based milk
- 100ml sunflower oil
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Other ingredients:
- 1 glass of pitted sour cherries in syrup (you will need roughly 300g or less cherries)
Vegan cherry blood ingredients:
- 150g pitted sour cherries (see above in other ingredients)
- 25ml juice/syrup from the sour cherries
Things you'll need:
- 1 or 2 cupcake trays
- 24 cupcake paper cases
- Mixer and blender (although you could do it by hand as well)
METHOD:
To make the brains add all custard brain ingredients into a blender and blend. You can also mix by hand but make sure there are no lumps.
Pour into a pan, switch on the heat and stir continuously so it doesn't burn. Keep on medium heat until the sauce thickens. That should take about 10 minutes roughly or less.
Pour into a tupperware dish and let cool down in the fridge.
To make the cupcakes preheat the oven to 180C (360F).
Mix together all dry vegan cupcakes ingredients in a large bowl - make sure there are no lumps.
And then mix together all wet cupcakes ingredients in a separate bowl.
Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix well with a hand mixer. Again, make sure there are no lumps.
Spoon the dough into two cupcake case lined cupcake trays (tongue breaker). Alternatively you can bake them one after the other in one tray. Add a pitted sour cherry to each of them for good measure.
Bake for 15 minutes. Then take out of the oven and let cool down.
When the vegan cupcakes have cooled down spread cherry jam on top. This will be the base for your brains.
Then take the custard brain mixture out of the fridge and fill an icing bag with it. Carefully pipe the brain icing onto the cupcakes in brain shape (as per video).
To make the vegan cherry blood add 150g of pitted sour cherries and 25ml of cherry juice (there should be some juice/syrup left in the jar from the cherries) and blend.
Drizzle or splatter the cherry blood over the pancakes.
Serve to your guests. Enjoy your vegan Halloween party!
And if you love hosting parties check out my baked courgette aubergine tarts with smoked tofu.
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Hello, I am Philipp! I started this blog because I believe delicious vegan food is for everyone and I believe in being inclusive. Food is about sharing and enjoyment and I wanted to cater for all palates while showing the amazing variety of luscious vegan dishes and how easy it is to cook them.
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