Baking Session: Vanilla Bean Latté Cupcakes

As mentioned, I met up with Janetta for a baking session yesterday, our second one since the midnight lemon cupcakes a couple months ago. Since we wanted a budget-friendly recipe, we decided to make "vanilla bean latté" cupcakes, which essentially consists of a vanilla bean cake with a hint of butterscotch and a vanilla-coffee buttercream. We decided to make ours vegan-friendly so that my vegan friend (and Janetta's vegan boyfriend) could eat these as well. Here was our baking process (this is a really photo-heavy post, so I apologize in advance for the loading):

In one bowl, add 1¼ cup all-purpose flour and 2 tbsp. cornstarch

Add ¾ tsp. baking powder, ½ tsp. baking soda, ¾ tsp. salt

Sift dry ingredients into bowl

In separate bowl, add ⅓ cup oil and ¾ cup sugar

Add 2 tsp. vanilla extract (Janetta had some homemade extract)

Add 1 tsp. rum extract (if you want a hint of butterscotch flavour)

Turn mixer on, and add 1 cup of water (or soy milk) and 1 tsp. vinegar

Add sifted dry ingredients into wet ingredients

Mix, mix, mix; if mixture is runny, add some more flour

Pour batter into cupcake liners (about ⅔ of the way up)

Put tray into pre-heated 350° oven, and bake for about 20 minutes

Let cupcakes cool before frosting

Buttercream frosting: Add vegan margarine to a bowl (we didn't have a set recipe for this, so we just winged it)

Add brown sugar syrup

Add vanilla bean

Add sifted icing sugar

Mix, mix, mix; see the delightful vanilla specks?

Add coffee (we used instant coffee)

Mix until whippy goodness

Put buttercream in a bowl and start frosting!

We sprinkled some sugar crystals on top

And then added a chocolate-covered espresso bean

Ready to be devoured!

For our "testing cupcake," we drizzled some caramel on top

The caramel made it a little too sweet for our liking, but it was otherwise delicious!

The recipe we followed was supposed to make 12 cupcakes, but we ended up with just enough for 11. Both the cake and the buttercream were a little softer, lighter, and fluffier than we were used to; we substituted a few things in this recipe that may have changed the texture (e.g. water for soy milk, oil for butter, etc.), but overall, these were pretty tasty. The rum extract added a really nice butterscotch flavour to the cupcakes, though you can easily substitute it with maple or almond or caramel. They were a huge hit to everyone (vegan and non-vegan alike) that I gave one to — my vegan friend actually exclaimed, "I would marry you for these cupcakes alone!" And she doesn't even believe in marriage. Job well done! Any ideas on what to make for our next baking session?