Homemade Hostess Cupcakes

This recipe is vegan if you use nondairy milks/margarine, but I'm sure if you made it with dairy substitutes it would work out fine as well.

First, just make a batch of chocolate cupcakes - this is my fallback chocolate cake recipe from Moosewood.  It's the best cake very - super moist and delicious.  Very good with some added almond extract with fresh berries and powdered sugar on top - but for the hostess cupcakes i'd keep the almond out.  Another note about the cake - for a good deep chocolate cake with hint of mocha, use cold coffee instead of the water.

Chocolate Cup Cakes

1.5 c. flour
1/3 c. cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. oil (vegetable or canola)
1 c. H2O
2 tsp. vanilla
2 Tbsp, cider vinegar

Preheat the oven to 375 - prepare muffin tins with wrappers (for cake pan, grease and lightly coat with cocoa)

Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt and sugar.  Make a small well in the sifted dry ingredients and add the oil, water and vanilla - mix well.  Add the vinegar and mix well.  You'll see lighter colored swirls - don't hesitate to put them in the pan and then oven because the moment you add it it starts creating gas to help the cake raise.  Cook until match or toothpick comes out clean - normal sized cakes take 25-30 minutes, I didn't right down how long cupcakes take so just keep an eye on them.  You can then start making the fluffy filling while the cupcakes are cooling 

Fluffy Filling

1/4 c. margarine (I use Earth Balance, a nondairy and non-hydrogenated margarine)

1/2 c. shortening (Butter flavored Crisco)

3/4 c. powdered sugar

1/4 c. soy milk powder

pinch of salt

2 tsp vanilla

Mix all ingredients together with an electric mixer for 10 minutes - seems like forever, but it'll form peaks and be nice and fluffy

DO THIS STEP AFTER CUPCAKES ARE COMPLETELY COOL! Fill pastry bag or ziplock with the filling and stick in in the cupcake and put a little in side.  If you don't have a pastry tip you might have to just poke a LITTLE hole (like with your pinkie) but you don't need to clear the whole area for the filling, it just fills in the air spaces.  Note: this is enough filling for two batches of the cupcake recipe above

Ganache

1/3 c. soy milk
2/3 c. chocolate chips

Melt the chocolate chips double boiler method (big pot with boiling water with smaller pot inside it with chocolate, make sure water doesn't get in the chocolate or it'll turn grainy.)  Once metled, add the soy milk.  While still warm and melty, dip the tops of the cupcakes (with filling inside), using a twisting motion to drip off excess chocolate.  Once the ganache is dried, you can add the white squiggles on top

Royal Icing (squiggles)

2 cups powdered sugar
2 Tbsp soy milk powder
2 Tbsp H2O

Mix all ingredients together, it'll be annoying and pasty looking - kind of like toothpaste.  Put into a pastry bag or ziplock with tip cut off - I'd suggest practicing the squiggles before moving on to the cupcakes