Let Them Eat Cake

And/but/so baking to cater for a love of sweet things does NOT have to be hindered by avoiding animal products. In most cases, simply substituting milk with soy and butter with Nuttelex or oil and eggs with egg replacer or some mashed vegetable or fruit works like a charm. But you already know this. What you need most of all for successful vegan cooking is imagination and persistence.

For my best friend's birthday I decided to play to her love of novelty cupcakes, and cook cupcake ice creams. Since store-bought ice-cream cones are in fact vegan, i decided to use a vegan cake recipe and icing so I could enjoy them too!

It took a few goes playing around with different icing (and in the picture you can see a combination of marzipan and butter cream decorated cakes) to get the best effect (comparing look, taste, and time/effort required, of course), but in the end they turned out beautifully!

Ice-cream Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 3/4 C plain flour
- 2/3 C hot water
- 3/4 C sugar
- 1/2 t baking soda
- 1/4 t baking powder
- 1/4 t salt
- 2 T butter (Nuttelex)
- 2 T oil
- 1 egg (No Egg prepared as per packet instructions)
- 2 t vanilla essence
- flat-bottomed ice-cream cones
Method
- in a bowl combine all dry ingredients
- prepare egg replacer, then combine all wet ingredients with dry ingredients
- now for the part where imagination and persistence come in. After various attempts I found that filling ice-cream cones around 2/3 full and microwaving for 35 seconds worked perfectly, but i cannot guarantee the same for any other microwaves or mixtures. have a play with one at a time before you go crazy and cook the whole batch. 
- after the cupcakes cool, go crazy decorating with your icing of choice. I use butter cream, which is creamed butter, icing sugar, vanilla and milk, and can be piped or spread on, but use whatever you like best. 
Enjoy!