Vegan Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes with Lemony Cream Cheese Icing

These delicate little cakes are something I created to celebrate the end of an era - the end of my 6 year double degree!! That's right I have finally finished my first 2 degrees and now I am free to a) earn proper money (a concept very foreign to me) and b) spend more time cooking and blogging! Hurray! 

Nothing could taste sweeter than freedom but these cupcakes come pretty close.

Ingredients

The Cupcakes:

1/4 cup soy milk (or almond milk)

1 cup raw sugar

1/3 cup canola or rice bran oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup cooked pumpkin, mashed finely

1 1/4 cups plain wholemeal flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarb soda

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground cardamom

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp lemon juice

1 tbsp lemon zest

Extra cinnamon, to sprinkle on top

The Icing:

1/4 cup nuttelex (or other vegan margarine)

1/4 cup vegan cream cheese

2 2/3 cups soft icing mixture

2 tsp lemon juice

2 tsp lemon zest

To Make:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

2. Combine the soy milk, sugar, oil and vanilla essence in a bowl and use a whisk to combine. Add the pumpkin and mix well.

3. Sift in the flour, bicarb, baking soda, lemon juice, zest and spices. Mix well to combine.

4. Fill a cupcake pan with paper liners. Fill liners just over half way full and bake for 17 minutes. Test that they are done by ensuring a knife comes out clean when stuck into the middle of them.

5. Mix the cream cheese, nuttelex, lemon juice and zest and icing mixture together in a bowl using either an electric mixer or a knife and some good old elbow grease (nice bicep workout).

6. Allow cupcakes to cool completely before icing. To ice, pipe the icing on in a spiral on the top of the cakes and sprinkle with cinnamon to prettify.

Makes 18 small cupcakes or 10 large cupcakes.