Vegan Chai Latte Cupcakes

Girly_Girl_Lori's Note:

I found this recipe when I was making a dessert for a group of people who had lots of food allergies. This recipe is egg, peanut, and milk free, and the non allergy people could not tell a difference. This really is an outstanding dessert to be made for people with food allergies, vegetarians, vegans, or people without food restrictions! Warning: Does contain soy and wheat.

• Total Time: 1 hrs
• Prep Time: 30 mins
• Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

Serves: 12

Yield: 12.0 cupcakes

FOR CUPCAKES

• 1 cup soymilk or 1 cup rice milk
• 4 black tea bags or 2 tablespoons loose black tea
• ¼ cup canola oil
• ½ cup vanilla soy yogurt
• ¾ cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1⁄3; cups all-purpose flour
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 pinch white pepper or 1 pinch ground black pepper

FOR TOPPING

• ½ cup confectioners' sugar
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg or ¼ teaspoon ground mace

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 and line tin with cupcake liners.
2. In a small saucepan heat soymilk until it is almost boiling. Add tea bags, cover and remove from heat. Let sit for 10 minutes.When ready to use stir teabags and thoroughly squeeze to insure as much tea is dissolved in milk as possible.
3. In a large bowl wisk together oil, yogurt, sugar, vanilla and tea mixture until all yogurt lumps disappear. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, and pepper into wet ingredients. Mix until large lumps disappear; some small lumps are okay. Fill tins full and bake about 20 to 22 minutes until a sharp knife inserted comes out clean.
4. Make sure cupcakes are completely cooled before adding topping, or the sugar will melt and not look pretty or powdery.
5. To assemble, sift confectioners sugar over cooled cupcakes first, then mix cocoa, cinnamon, and nutmeg together and sift onto each cupcake. Enjoy!