I’ve posted Dairy-Free Orange and Vanilla before, but completely forgot about it when I needed a dairy-free recipe. It’s fairly easy to substitute ingredients in for specific nutritional requirements, thanks to things like gluten-free flours and lactose/vegan margarines.

The photo above was from my first test run of dairy-free. I chose to use one of my existing vanilla cupcake recipes but simply replace the dairy ingredients with Nuttelex and Soy Milk. As yucky as soy milk may sound to some people (my Twitter feed reacted quite strongly to the thought of it!) you can’t taste it at all in this recipe.

Dairy-Free Vanilla Cupcakes (makes approx 18 regular / 30 mini)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups Self-Raising Flour
• 2/3 cup Caster Sugar
• 2 eggs
• 115g Nuttelex (or any other vegan margarine)
• 1/2 cup Soy Milk
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence

Method

1. Preheat oven to 175C (160C fan forced). As always, I recommend you use an oven thermometer.
2. Beat the Nuttelex, sugar and vanilla essence together – you don’t need to pre-beat the Nuttelex as it’s already soft.
3. Add in the eggs one at a time and mix until combined. It might look as if it’s seperated at first but will mix together.
4. Sift the flour and add half in with half of the soy milk. Repeat with the remaining half.
5. At this stage, if it seems too thick, add 1-2 tablespoons worth of soy milk, but don’t add too much!
6. Spoon into cases and bake for 15 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.

“Buttercream” Frosting

Ingredients

• 150g Nuttelex
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
• 3 – 4 cups Icing Sugar (sifted)
• 1 – 2 tablespoons Soy Milk

Method

1. Beat Nuttelex with Icing Sugar (and vanilla essence), adding it one sifted cup at a time.
2. It should start to get fairly thick after the third cup – you might not need a fourth. Give it a taste test to see if the balance of sugar and Nuttelex is even. If you find it is too thick, add the soy milk in in very very small amounts (that’s why I’ve written maybe 1-2 tablespoons) until it is at the right consistency to pipe or spread on the cupcakes.

Remember, if it’s too thick and you use a plastic disposable piping bag, it’ll split the sides of the bag. I know this from experience If you’re not sure how thick it should be, it should be thick enough to hold it’s shape but not too thick that when you mix it by hand it is tiring. If you add too much liquid in, you’ll have to add a whole lot more icing sugar to even it out.

Here’s what the second run looked like (using fondant hearts and colouring in the icing)

Happy baking!