Holy Molé! Iron Cupcakes!

For my first-ever Iron Cupcake: Earth Challenge, I created Holy Molé Vegan Chocolate-Chili Cupcakes with Cinnamon Buttercream:


In case you don't know about Iron Cupcake: Earth, it's an awesome monthly cupcake challenge/contest in which bakers create a cupcake recipe based around a specified ingredient. As you can tell from my Mexican-molé-inspired cupcakes, this first challenge was chili pepper.

These cuppies are based on the traditional molé sauce, but unlike the common savory version, my molé doesn't contain nasty stuff like chicken broth, garlic, or onions (nothing against garlic and onions, but um, not in my cupcakes please). Instead, I tossed some melted dark chocolate, vegan margarine, soymilk, cinnamon, ground almonds, raisins, and of course, three tablespoons of homemade ground ancho chili powder into the food processor.

The result was DEE-LI-CIOUS!!! I know cause I licked the bowl. Then I mixed that sauce with whole-wheat pastry flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar and Holy Molé cupcakes were born!

I topped them with the cinnamon buttercream to really bring out the cinnamon flavor in the cupcakes. And I garnished with a cut-out pepper flower and extra ancho powder.

This was my first time ever creating my own cake recipe from scratch! And now I feel so proud of myself. I didn't even know I could do that! I can't wait to see what the next challenge will be.

By the way, this is a contest so you can totally vote for me (or whichever cupcake you think sounds/looks the best) if you feel so inclined. Voting opens Sunday at No One Puts Cupcake In a Corner and runs through September 4th.

We're competing to win some awesome prizes, like cupcake art by Cakespy, vintage aprons by Jessie Steele Aprons, super-handy cupcake trays from The Cupcake Courier, and stuff from Taste of Home.

Also, if you want in on the action next month, head to No One Puts Cupcake In a Corner and sign up! The next ingredient will be announced September 5th! Happy Cupcaking!