These cupcakes are awesome and so easy to make! You can also turn them into any type of cupcake by adding whatever icing you want, and after that, top them with all kinds of really great stuff like cookies, sprinkles, or whatever you like!
What you need:
3C flour
6T cocoa powder
2t baking soda
2C white sugar (I like to use 1 1/2 C white sugar and 1/2 C brown sugar, but its up to you)
1t salt
10T vegetable oil
2T white vinegar
2t vanilla extract
2C cold water
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a big mixing bowl, throw in the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt. Mix it all up with a big spoon. Then, make a well in the middle of the dry mixture and add the vegetable oil, white vinegar, vanilla extract, and cold water. If you have a mixer, great! Mix it up till its a nice, smooth consistency and you’re ready to bake. See, I told you it was super easy!
Take your cupcake pan and put the little paper cups in. I like to spray the inside of the paper cups with a little canola spray before pouring in the batter. When you’re ready to pour, use a soup ladle and fill the cups about 3/4 of the way full. Then pop them into the oven and bake about 25 to 30 minutes. Poke the middle cupcake with a toothpick to check that they are done. Depending on how hot your oven *really* gets, this might only take 20 minutes, so be sure to check up on them.
After they’ve cooled, get yourself some vegan frosting and throw a cupcake decorating party! 
*note*
This recipe can double as a cake recipe. All you have to do is pour the entire batter mixture into a large glass casserole dish and bake it the same amount of time, give or take 5 minutes.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Do these really work?
If this recipe is as good as it sounds I will make it on the weekend!!
Sarah,
I’ve had great luck with them. The cupcakes turn out super moist and aren’t too dense and crumbly, as a lot of vegan cakes and cupcakes can be at times. Be sure to watch them while baking the first time, if your oven has a tendency to be a little over temp, it can take less than 25 minutes. Let me know what you think!
Jade
These are the BEST cupcakes – I made them for my son’s class for his birthday and the kids absolutely LOVED them, even the teacher asked for the recipe! I have made them several times since and nobody ever believes they are vegan
They are tasty, beautifully moist and they always work perfectly every time – this is now my favourite cupcake recipe ever 
Glad to hear you enjoyed our vegan cupcake recipe
This sounds wonderful! I love vegan chocolate cupcakes. There is a vegan bakery in NYC Babycakes which sells amazing cupcakes.
I blog about vegan dining during world travel and share vegan travel advice.
See http://www.veganworldtrekker.com
Delicious! I made these with fair-trade sugar, cocoa, and vanilla for my vegan friend’s birthday. They were great, and I would make them again! I forgot how long they took to bake, but I’m pretty sure it was less than 25 mins, so do keep an eye on them. Also, this recipe makes 2 dozen. As an inexperienced cupcake baker, I don’t know if that’s normal for cupcake recipes, but I was only prepared for 1 dozen. I’ll halve the recipe next time!
Hi I prepared these cakes today for the first time. Thanks for your post which helped me.
Everything was good except, I couldnt get the cakes to come to brim of the cups. If I poured more batter it kindof made the cup flat and when I poured less batter it didnot come till the edge of cups after baking.
Was the paper cups weakness the reason
or was my batter too fluid
or should I have used more baking soda
or anything else
Please advice. You can mail me as well.
Thanks so much for this recipe! I tried it out and I loved it. I took the liberty to use sparkling water io plain water make the cakes lighter, raspberry vinegar io plain white vinegar and I used carobe powder io cocoa. I could make about 30 cupcakes and I baked them 25min. Turned out perfect: light, sweet, moist and… perfect!