I had been reading about The Secret Recipe Club on various food blogs since a while now. It was quite an intriguing idea to me, being assigned a food blog and cooking up some delicious recipe from their blog while keeping it a secret. And someone else doing the exact same thing from your blog! I wanted in on this group as well. So I signed up and waited for a couple of months to get accepted. I was thrilled to know last month that I was in and couldn’t wait to get started!

This is my very first time with The Secret Recipe Club, and I am super-excited about my first reveal!  I was assigned the blog K and K Test Kitchen, run by the mother-daughter duo of Kim and Kelsey. My first thought was about how sweet it was that a mother and daughter were doing something like this together. Then I spent much time browsing through their collection of recipes, being tempted by many, and not being able to decide what to make. Finally I stumbled upon a recipe for Vegan Mint Chocolate Cupcakes that I had to make. Them being vegan was a big draw. And they looked so good. Of course, I made them vegetarian and not vegan.

And the result? I can just say “wow”! They were so moist and fluffy, it was hard to believe they were eggless. I was a little worried when the batter was so thin, but they turned out absolutely fine. I took them to a friend’s birthday and they vanished in no time!

I did make a few changes. Regular milk instead of soy milk. Canola oil instead of vegetable oil. And I did a chocolate ganache frosting with powdered mint in it, instead of doing a chocolate ganache and then mint icing on top of it. I must say that the mint-chocolate frosting was finger-licking good!

For 24 Mint Chocolate Cupcakes:

Cupcake

2 cups sugar
1 ¾ cups flour
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 ½ tsp. baking soda
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
½ cup canola oil
2 tsp. vanilla
3 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
½ cup boiling water

Chocolate Ganache Frosting

400 gms dark chocolate
1 cup heavy cream
2 tsps powdered mint

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

For the cupcake batter

In a large bowl, stir together the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the milk, oil, vanilla and vinegar, mix for 2 min. Stir in the boiling water. Batter will be thin. Pour into cupcake liners (about 3/4 full). Bake for 12-16 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely.

For the ganache frosting

Chop chocolate and transfer into a bowl. Heat the cream until bubbles form around the edge of the pan, but don’t let it boil over. Pour the cream over the chocolate. Let sit for 1 minute then stir until combined. Add the powdered mint. Stir until combined. Let cool until at spreading consistency.

Using a pastry bag, pipe the frosting on top of the cupcake (if you don’t have a pastry bag, fill a Ziploc and cut a tip).

Top with your favourite sprinkles and dig in.

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