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These vegan red velvet cupcakes are ultra tender with a tangy cream cheese frosting. You might not even know they’re vegan!
Why These Cupcakes Are So Good
- These vegan red velvet cupcakes are oh-so-moist, with just the perfect amount of cocoa, a strong depth of flavor, and simply the perfect texture.
- Taken from Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s incredible recipe, these cupcakes are so incredibly decadent that you will hardly be able to believe they are totally vegan.
- The vegan cream cheese frosting is unbelievably sweet and creamy and will become your new favorite frosting for every dessert.
How To Make Them
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line muffin pans with cupcake liners.
- Whisk together the almond milk and apple cider vinegar. Set aside to curdle, about 5-10 minutes. (If it doesn’t curdle, no worries!)
- Into a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix.
- Add the oil, food coloring, vanilla extract, and almond extract to the milk-vinegar mixture, and whisk well to combine. Gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mix until the large lumps disappear.
- Fill cupcake liners about two-thirds full. (These cupcakes will rise fairly high, so you don’t want them to overflow!) Place into the preheated oven and bake 18-20 minutes. Be sure not to over-bake! (Insert a toothpick into the center of the cupcakes. When they are ready, the toothpick will turn red, but won’t have any crumbs attached to it.) When they are done, let them cool for a few minutes before removing from the muffin tin. Then transfer the cupcakes to cooling rack to cool completely. (You don’t want to frost warm cupcakes or the frosting will melt!)
- To make the cream cheese frosting, combine cream cheese and butter in either the bowl of a standing mixer or a regular bowl if using a hand mixer. Beat on medium speed until the frosting is smooth. Pour in the vanilla extract, then the powdered sugar, about 1-2 cups at a time. After adding each ingredient, beat on medium speed until fully incorporated. Refrigerate until ready to use.
- Frost with the cream cheese frosting. These look especially awesome with a piped swirl! Try a Wilton 2A round tip to achieve a perfect swirl.
More Incredible Vegan Treats
- Chocolate Cupcakes with Peppermint Frosting {Vegan}
- Vegan Pumpkin Pie
- No Bake Margarita Bars (Paleo, Vegan)
- Vegan No Bake Cookie Dough Cheesecake (Paleo, Raw)
Vegan Red Velvet Cupcakes
The perfect red velvet cupcakes with tangy cream cheese frosting. Delightfully vegan.
Ingredients
- 1 cup almond milk or other plant-based milk, like oat or soy
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup neutral oil like avocado oil or vegetable oil
- 2 tablespoons vegetarian red food coloring
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract
Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting
- 8 oz. vegan cream cheese like Kite Hill. See Note
- 8 tablespoons vegan butter softened. We like Miyoko's
- 5 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350ºF and line muffin pans with cupcake liners.
- Whisk together milk and apple cider vinegar and set aside to curdle, about 5 – 10 minutes. If it doesn't curdle, that's OK!
- Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into large bowl and mix.
- Add the oil, food coloring, vanilla extract, and almond extract to the curdled milk-vinegar mixture. Whisk well to combine. Gently fold wet ingredients into dry, mixing until large lumps disappear.
- Fill cupcake liners about two-thirds full (these cupcakes will rise fairly high). Place in preheated oven and bake 18 to 20 minutes, but be sure not to over-bake. Use a toothpick inserted in the center to tell–the toothpick will be red, but there should not be any batter or crumbs sticking. When done, let cool for a few minutes then transfer cupcakes to cooling rack to cool completely.
- Make the cream cheese frosting: in the bowl of a standing mixer (or use a large bowl with a hand mixer), combine cream cheese and butter. Beat on medium speed until smooth. Pour in vanilla extract, then add in the powdered sugar, about 1-2 cups at a time. Beat on medium speed until completely incorporated after each addition. Refrigerate until ready to use.
- Frost with cream cheese frosting. These look especially awesome with a piped swirl! Try a Wilton 2A round tip to achieve a perfect swirl.
- The brand of the vegan cream cheese can make a big difference here. We like Kite Hill and GoVeggie. Use your favorite!
- Make sure you use vegetarian red food coloring in this recipe.
Approximate Information for One Serving
Calories: 479calProtein: 3gFat: 18gSaturated Fat: 4gSodium: 305mgPotassium: 43mgTotal Carbs: 79gFiber: 2gSugar: 66gNet Carbs: 77gVitamin A: 356IUCalcium: 47mgIron: 1mg
Nutrition Disclaimers
Number of total servings shown is approximate. Actual number of servings will depend on your preferred portion sizes.
Nutritional values shown are general guidelines and reflect information for 1 serving using the ingredients listed, not including any optional ingredients. Actual macros may vary slightly depending on specific brands and types of ingredients used.
To determine the weight of one serving, prepare the recipe as instructed. Weigh the finished recipe, then divide the weight of the finished recipe (not including the weight of the container the food is in) by the desired number of servings. Result will be the weight of one serving.
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I made these for a fundraising bake sale and nobody would’ve known they were vegan if I didn’t tell them! Perfect texture!!! It makes way too much icing though, fyi 🙂
That’s awesome! Thanks for the review.
Baking for someone with nut allergies, how important is the almond extract?
It’s just for additional flavor! 🙂 It can be omitted.
I make these on a regular basis now and my family goes crazy for them. Thank you for the recipe!!
I just made them! Awesome red velvet flavor, great texture…
Thanks for the awesome review!
I just made these today, using this recipe as a base. I tweaked a couple of things and they came out moist, bright red and will get loaded with my own version of cream cheese frosting tomorrow. I used a beet puree instead of apple sauce (omitting the red coloring), and melted Earth Balance for the fat. Then to take it one step further I used Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 gluten-free flour mix. Thank you for the recipe from Isa.
Hi! Can I take out the almond extract? How would I compensate for that?
Hi! You can take it out. 🙂
Oh…..Lovely and cute….I can’t wait to try this.Thanks for sharing red velvet cake recipe.
So yummy! So easy!
I just wanted to say that I used chocolate soy milk but no chocolate extract, just upped the vanilla as you suggest. They were delicious! Thank you for sharing this recipe.
Hi there! Thank you so much for posting this recipe! I’m in the middle of making these right now and I noticed the batter is really runny. Is this normal?
It won’t be as thick as like a cake batter but shouldn’t be SUPER runny
Excellent website. Lots of useful info here. I’m sending it to a few pals ans
also sharing in delicious. And naturally, thanks for
your effort!