Super quick, super moist, super chocolatey

“Cupcakes are muffins that believe in miracles.” While this sentence is always true, it is most definitely the case with these egg-free chocolate cupcakes. So if you have an egg intolerance or allergy, check out this recipe. And even if you are someone who is perfectly fine with having egg, you won’t even notice it is not part of this mini cake.

I always used to think that baking a cake without eggs is like coffee without milk, like Sunday without soul food, like summers without BBQs. It works without, but it’s just so much better with. Turns out I was wrong. I had my epiphany moment on that when our daughter turned 2 and it turned out that one of the kids in her daycare is allergic to eggs. So, for him to be able to have some of the birthday cake, the recipe needed to take that into account.

Since I love baking, I dived into the challenge of coming up with a tasty egg-free chocolate cupcake recipe that would work for little ones, seeking a substitute for the role of eggs as the glue that hold all of a cake’s components in place. A lot of egg-free cakes are incredibly crumbly as they miss this glue. In the hands of little toddlers this would create a big mess no matter how tasty they were. Besides, dry and crumbly cake is not that much fun anyways.

Luckily, I found the magic solution. So here it is: a recipe for fluffy and moist egg-free chocolate cupcakes. The trick is the power combo of vinegar, milk and oil. Yes, I know, it sounds more like a salad dressing. Bear with me though. Mixed, those three components are an ideal glue-y substitute for eggs and also ensure that the cake has just the right moisture level. And don’t worry, you won’t taste the vinegar, I promise. Somehow all of the vinagar acid and taste randomly completely disappears the second the cupcakes come out of the oven.

Egg-free chocolate cupcakes at a glance

Servings: 15-18
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Oven time: 20 minutes
Start to finish: 35 minutes

Ingredients

1 ¾ cups (7.6 ounces/215 grams) of all-purpose flour
½ a cup (1.5 ounces/43 grams) of cocoa
1 teaspoon of baking soda
½ a teaspoon of salt
1 cup (7.1 ounces/200 grams) of sugar
3 teaspoons of vinegar
1 cup (8.1 fl ounces/240 ml) of whole milk
½ a cup (4 ounces/120 ml) of vegetable oil
2 tablespoons of water
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Chocolate melts

How to prepare egg-free chocolate cupcakes

Step 1: Start by mixing the vinegar and milk in a large bowl. Next, stir in the sugar until it has fully melted. Then, blend in the vegetable oil, water and vanilla extract.

Step 2: Add the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt to a second bowl and whisk it until blended. Then, combine the flour mix and liquids from the first bowl until you have a smooth dough.

Step 3: Place cupcake paper liners in muffin molds and fill them with 1.5-2 tablespoons of the cake mix.

Step 4: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit/175 degrees Celsius and then bake the egg-free chocolate cupcakes for 20 minutes.

Step 5: Once the cupcakes have cooled down, after you have taken them out of the oven, melt the chocolate and apply it to the top of the miniature cakes.

Step 6: Enjoy your egg-free chocolate cupcakes and maybe tell your guest only afterwards that they were done with vinegear instead of eggs. They will be just as mind-blown as I was when i had them the first time.