Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (4 page)

 

Baker’s Catalogue

www.bakerscatalogue.com
Fancy flours, baking gadgets galore, and deep, dark, black cocoa powder made by King Arthur himself!

 

Pangea Vegan Store

www.veganstore.com
Get your soy milk powder here, plus the Pangea Store’s very own brand of vegan white chocolate chips!

TOOLS FOR TAKING OVER

J
UST AS NASA has their tools for exploring space, we have ours for baking cupcakes and they are just as important. Maybe if Galileo had focused his attention on baking instead of telescopes, cupcakes would have been discovered a few centuries earlier. No matter; we have the knowledge now.

Muffin pans

We suggest using shiny, aluminum muffin pans, as they produce the most consistently perfect results. The other options we don’t like so much, and here’s why:

Mixing bowls

You’ll need two nice-sized, medium mixing bowls. What do we mean by nice-sized? You should have at least five inches of space left over after adding all the ingredients, because you want plenty of space while mixing the batter. We use glass, plastic, and metal bowls that have perfectly round insides for easy, consistent mixing. Ideally, mixing bowls will not be plastic because plastic absorbs weird odors, but really, who cares?

 

Most of our recipes call for two bowls, one for the dry ingredients and one forthe wet (note that more often than not we include the sugar with the wet ingredients). In most cases we sift the dry ingredients into the wet, so use the bigger of your mixing bowls for wet ingredients.

 

Smaller mixing bowl

A smaller bowl is convenient for mixing frostings. We wouldn’t call it a
small
bowl, just smaller. To describe the size: imagine someone eating a bowl of cereal that is big but not so ridiculously big you feel a need to laugh and point. So yeah, a little bigger than average.

Sifter

Sifting is a necessary part of cupcake baking because it aerates the flour, making it lighter and more manageable. It also ensures that there are no clumps of baking soda or chocolate in your batter. Ourfavorite sifter is actually a fine mesh strainer (or sieve), preferably with a long handle and rounded hooks on the opposite end for resting on the bowl. You can also
use a proper sifter, which looks like a big metal German beer stein and has either a hand crank or a device on the handle that you press to crank. We prefer the fine mesh strainer—easier to clean, and sometimes we just place it on top of the wet ingredient mixing bowl and sift the ingredients right into the batter.

 

Rubber spatula

Rubber spatulas are useful for making sure that you get every last bit of batter. A fancy heatproof silicon one is also nice to have when making ganache or cooked toppings.

 

Wire whisk

A wire whisk whips wet ingredients into a frenzy. But a strong fork will work as well.

 

Large wooden spoon

Use a large wooden spoon for folding ingredients into the batter.

 

Electric handheld mixer

Handheld mixers are the easiest and most efficient tools for small batches of batter. They are also useful for mixing thick frostings to a fluffy consistency.

Microplane grater

For zesting citrus and freshly grating nutmeg.

 

Cooling rack

Baked stuff cools quicker and more evenly when set on a cooling rack. And without them the bottoms of cooling cupcakes can get soggy—so sad. There’s no reason not to have them; they cost peanuts.

 

Oven thermometer

Why does one need an extra thermometer when there’s one right on the oven? Because ovens are not to be trusted. They are your enemies, and an impartial oven thermometer prevents backstabbing. It’s another cheap-o gadget that makes for happy bakers and happy cupcakes.

Small metal frosting spatula

This is sometimes referred to as a palette knife but you don’t need a full-sized one for your little munchkin cupcakes. They are great for spreading thick frostings into a smooth, swooping finish and they work much better than a thin butter knife.

Cake decorating sets

Most houseware stores and large supermarkets carry cake decorating sets. It’s usually a few plastic pastry bags and four to six decorating tips, plus some food coloring that we usually discard. These sets will get the job done just fine, but when you are ready to get all serious and brain surgeon about your cupcake decorating, you can stop in at either a baking or kitchen supply store and choose other tips to experiment with.

 

Pastry bags

Have on hand several disposable, plastic pastry bags. In a super punk-rock pinch you can stuff frosting into zip-top bags, seal the top, and cut a tiny hole in one of the bottom corners. It’s a little messy and unpredictable, but that’s anarchy for you. If you find that you love decorating so much, it’s worth it to procure a cloth pastry bag; this will make you feel very professional and has the added benefit of being reusable so it’s betterforthe environment and you will always have one when you need it.

 

Decorating tips

Decorating tips are standardized by number to make life easier for us homemakers. For cupcake decorating we stick pretty closely to three types of tips. Yeah, we’re all kinds of crafty but we don’t have the patience for intensive decorating, especially when equally awesome results can be had with a few flicks of the wrist and some creative garnish placement. We use the star tip (#21) for swirling frosting into a little mound of decorative heaven. You can also use it to make stars or cute star flowers. The writing tip (#3) is for, well, writing, but also for piping thin icing into squigglies, stripes, zig-zags and other Jackson Pollack-like decorations. Tip #104 is the rose tip. It’s freaking crazy but if you have the patience then go for it.

 

Our other favorite tips are #809 and #827. These do not come in a kit and will most likely need to be procured at a kitchen supply or baking store. They are large, wide-mouthed decorating tips that are fun for applying mousse or buttercream into a luscious, swirly mountain of yum. Most kitchen supply stores have tips stocked in small bins in their decorating section, but sometimes they are kept in what must be a high security safe behind the counter and you have to ask an employee to get them for you.

Don’t feel like you have to have those things oryour cupcakes won’t be pretty. We lived for years without any of this and still made cute cupcakes. If all you’ve got is the back of a spoon and a plastic bag with a hole cut out of the corner, so be it! Thousands have walked in your shoes before—be proud of your cupcake-making ancestry and hold your head high.