Teacher Appreciation

I'm sick... over the past 2 weeks 3 of the kids and my hubby have been fighting some kind of germy nasty-ness, yesterday it manifested it's self in me and my poor little Layth. We feel like crap. Asides from that I am feeling awful. One of my grandmothers is not doing so great. She's old, I know, but it's hard when you see the rock of your family start to crumble. In any other circumstance I would pack myself and Layth up and we would hop in the car and take that 2 hr drive to see her in a heart beat. But with the germs we can't. Makes me feel even worse. All that being said I will apologize now if this post is less than spectacular, or dare I say incoherent.

Anyone who knows me knows that when I am upset, down or stressed I head to the kitchen. So that is exactly what I did. Lucky for me it is also Teacher Appreciation week at my daughter's school and they asked us to donate some baked goods. Great I can bake and we don't have to eat it. Perfect.

Since it's for the school it has to be nut free. I'll take it one step further and do egg free too. This could easily be a completely vegan cupcake, but I can't bring myself to make the vegan icing. So while the cupcakes themselves are vegan. The icing is not.

Since they are for the teachers I am faced with a tough decision. Which type of cute cupcake wrapper should I use? If I was closer to my good friend over at Just Me Prints I would have just got her to make me some super cute tags. But I'm not, so this is what I decided. Cute purple flower cupcake holders.

Now for my favourite Chocolate Cupcake recipe. Yes it happens to be vegan, but it is my go to, and I promise you won't even know that it's vegan. It is super easy, light, fluffy, and ouber cheap to make. Win on all levels.

I decided to make them mint chocolate. Here goes:
Start with the wet ingredients:

5 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp white vinegar
1tsp mint extract (or vanilla if you prefer)
1 1/4 cups water
Wisk well together

Then add:
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cups sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Mix really well until there are no lumps.

Here is my trick. Not really to complicated. Since this batter is a bit on the wetter side, and since these are cute liners I don't want them to get all dirty. So I use one of my piping bags, drape it over a tall cup and fill with the batter. Then snip the end off and it is much easier to fill the liners mess free.

(Also yes I normally use reusable piping bags so I don't have to waste. But I'm sick and the thought of washing them is not doing it for me today. Thus disposable is the way to go.)

Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.
Let them cool on a wire rack.

Ice with your favourite icing. Mine happens to be a simple:
3/4cup butter
3 cups icing sugar
splash of heavy cream
mini splash of mint (or vanilla) extract
Beat until creamy.

So I tinted my icing a light yellow for the middle of the flower. Creative no?

I also busted out some different decorating techniques for all of them I used my #18 Wilton tip.

Hope you enjoy!