Vegan & Sugar Free Chocolate & Vanilla Cupcakes

I used Fran Costigan's great book: "Great, Good Desserts, Naturally!" for inspiration.

I began by adapting her "Chocolate Cake to Live for" recipe..

I wanted a vegan red velvet cake. I know you can buy vegan red food colouring, but I wanted to try an au natural alternative- with the much touted, beet(root) juice..

I substituted 1/2 the soy milk, with beet juice.

The tops of the cupcakes turned a nice raspberry brown colour, but the cake, was plain ol' brown..

For the cake I used barley malt syrup and maple syrup as sweeteners.

The cake was ok, but not the best.

The texture was great, especially for a dairy & egg free cake, but overall it was not chocolatey enough for my liking.

I attempted Frans basic tofu buttercream frosting.

I should have followed it to the letter-

Who the hell did I think I was, experimenting on this front!?

I paid dearly.

The results were interesting, and made me realise I could make my own yummy vegan fruit jello cups now..
But so far as frosting- Not even close..

So to redeem the cakes, I fell back on the usual vanilla buttercream.

The photo is terrible because it was all I could manage, in between being frosted, and whisked off with K, to his work.