Beautiful Blueberries

I would like to believe that I’m the resident vegan cupcake queen. Actually, as I think back (a whole year ago), I assumed I would be giving up my cupcake baking therapy when I decided to go vegan. For me, and I think for most people, ‘Vegan’ is synonymous with sacrifice (of deliciousness, not animals, that is) and naturally I felt like I was going to give up my foodie fetish ways when I made the switch. It wasn’t until after my conversion to the other side that I found out that vegan cooking would actually enhance my relationship with food and I could still be bffs with my cupcake pans.

We’re on the brink of blueberry palooza in B.C. so I wanted to share my first successful attempt at vegan cupcakes. I made them for Stacey’s mom’s bday. I made two types of really basic cupcakes – vanilla and chocolate and topped them with an Earth Balance butter cream frosting and fresh blueberries from my dad’s garden. When the guests were eating the cupcakes, I made sure to proudly mention “They’re Vegan!”. I think the most popular response was “Oh!” and a look as if I just told them exactly why E equals mc2. Mostly disinterested, they probably didn’t even know what vegan means. But, this radical and gutsy test run of thankfully beautiful and delish cupcakes assured me that I can continue on my cupcake lovin’ ways. In fact, I went to town in the last couple months with all sorts of tasty mini cakes piled with layer after layer of velvety icing. You can see them later.