Cupcakes: 15 minutes preparation + 18-20 minutes cooking
Buttercream: 10 minutes
Chocolate Sauce: 6 minutes
Assembly: 12 minutes
Total time: 1 hour 3 minutes
Difficulty: hard
Serves: makes 12 cupcakes
If you can’t find Crisco you can use only Nuttelex; however, it tends to become a bit of a funny consistency when you add food colouring.
Ingredients
Chocolate Cupcakes
- Use your favourite vegan chocolate cupcake recipe. I love the basic chocolate cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World!
Mint Buttercream
- ¼ cup Crisco
- ¼ cup Nuttelex
- 2 cups icing mixture (much easier to use than icing sugar because it doesn’t go lumpy)
- 2 t peppermint essence
- 1–2 drops green food colouring
Chocolate Sauce
- 20g chocolate (I used 3 squares Coles 70% dark chocolate)
- ½ t soy milk
Optional Toppings
- Chocolate sauce (above)
AND/OR any of:
- 12 mint chocolate block squares, about ¼ of a packet (I used Whittaker’s Ghana Peppermint 75%)
- 12 Mintons (the vegan version of Arnott’s Mint Slice – found in Coles) you’ll need 2 packets as they come in packs of 10
- 1 packet chocolate chips (Sweet William do vegan chocolate chips – found in Coles)
- 12 fresh mint leaves
Methods
Chocolate Cupcakes
- Use your favourite vegan chocolate cupcake recipe. I love the basic chocolate cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World!
Mint Buttercream
- Cream the Crisco and Nuttelex in the bowl of a free-standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment until the colour starts to lighten.
- Add the icing mixture about ½ cup at a time until well incorporated.
- Add the essence and colour (add colour SLOWLY – only want a very light/pastel green colour), adjust if necessary.
Assembly
- Fill a pastry bag fitted with a round or star tip with the peppermint icing.
- Pipe a good amount of icing onto each cupcake in a swirl shape.
- Top with toppings of choice.
Chocolate Sauce
- Melt the chocolate in a saucepan over medium heat with the milk.
- Once the chocolate has completely melted, remove from heat.
- Cool to slightly higher than room temperature before using.
- Transfer to a disposable piping bag or Ziploc bag and cut a tiny hole in the bottom.
- Drizzle the chocolate sauce over iced cupcakes to make a cross-cross pattern.