Vegan Champagne Cupcakes

Powered by last-minute desperation and the random contents of my pantry, these made their debut on November 16th, 2008 at Cupcake Camp East. Inspired by the folks at the currently-forthcoming Open Source Cupcakes, I've decided to release the recipe under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license. I look forward to the mash-ups. Also, if you make an awesome-looking batch, please send me a picture!

Ingredients

• 3 cups white flour
• 2 cups sugar (use sucanat if you are concerned about charcoal filtering)
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 cup canola oil
• 1 cup leftover Obama victory champagne (other champagne might do)
• 1 cup water
• 2 dozen cupcake papers (optional)

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.

Mix dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients. If hopelessly runny, add more flour. The batter should be pourable but not watery.

Pour into cupcake papers in pan. If you're out of cupcake papers, grease and flour the cups in the pan, cross your fingers and you'll still get intact cupcakes.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Cool. Frost.

Vegan Brown Sugar Champagne Frosting

Ingredients

• 12 oz brown sugar (again, use sucanat or other cane juice crystals if you are worried about charcoal filtering)
• 1/3 cup vegan margarine (Earth Balance), room temperature
• A splash of vanilla
• A splash of champagne

Method

Use blender to reduce brown sugar to a powdered sugar consistency. Mix in margarine, vanilla and champagne. Add just barely enough liquid to create a workable consistency, NOT so much that it comes out runny. Frost cooled cupcakes quickly.