100% vegan chocolate cupcakes

I have wanted this book forever : Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World (or VCTOTW) by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, two cool vegan girls from Brooklyn. I only recently received it, but it was worth waiting for. It is cute, cool and delicious. Both of the recipes I've tried so far have had that "I can't believe it's vegan!" wow factor, and believe me, we love our meat! Not that meat would come into the equation where cakes are concerned of course, but we're not shy with dairy or eggs, especially if they're involved in a sweet concoction.

The first one was the golden vanilla cupcakes with chocolate mousse topping (look here). I used cow's milk though because that's what I had. But, it's of notice that this made me eat tofu, which I normally hate. This was silken tofu out of a tetrapak, and if anything, it tastes watery on its own, but mix it with melted chocolate, and you've got a luscious chocolate dessert that goes really well with the cupcakes.

This weekend I made the chocolate agave syrup cupcakes, in a bid to keep my blood sugar low (that's what agave syrup does in comparison to plain sugar), although this was counteracted by the chocolate buttercream icing/ frosting (see recipe here) that I piled on top of them, but still. I used only vegan ingredients.
My ingredients, though I see now that I forgot the flour (semi-wholewheat) as well as the buttercream ones, oh well

You really can't tell it's "cruelty-free" (oh yeah, I went all out and bought some soy milk, made sure the margarine and shortening were vegan). But it is very cocoa-rich, and therefore might taste a little surprising (in a deep, dark cocoa-flavour way, cocoa does taste slightly bitter and floury in high quantities). Therefore, I preferred them the next day, but nonetheless gratefully wolfed down my first one on the same day. Even Maya kept asking for more, and that's surely a sign.
The cake is moist and tender, the icing complements it beautifully.

I cracked open my new piping bag. It's not easy to pipe swirls gracefully, so I went for the little spikes instead, which I thought looked quite cool.

I made a half batch of each recipe, and I got six cupcakes and largely enough to smother them in frosting.

There are many more recipes I'd love to try, like the Brownie cupcakes, or the peanut butter ones, the blueberry mousse (silken tofu again), the Elvis cupcakes (banana, buttercream, sprinkles, etc). It's no wonder there are hordes of VCTOTW fans out there, if you're vegan this book is a must-buy, same if you have dairy or egg allergies. And if like me, you're not vegan, well you should get this book too because the recipes work, it's a nice funky read, and it's always a good idea to save on cholesterol and other animal fats and to give animals a rest once in a while.