Many people would assume that anything both vegan AND gluten-free must be about as delicious as cardboard. Get ready for shock and awe, people, as we present a cupcake recipe that will.. Blow. Your. Mind!

Cupcake Mix:

1½ cups Self-Raising Gluten-Free Flour (we used Laucke Easy Bakers Special White Gluten-Free flour, available in the health section of many supermarkets)
1 cup Castor Sugar
3 tablespoons Vegetable Oil
1 tablespoon Egg Substitute (eg. No Egg) mixed with 3 tablespoons Water
½ cup Nuttelex (or other vegan margarine)
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract/Essence
¾ cup Soy Milk
½ cup Dessicated Coconut

Chocolate Coffee Icing:

2½ cups Icing Sugar
¾ cup Nuttelex
3 teaspoons Vanilla Extract/Essence
3 tablespoons hot Fair-trade Coffee
7 tablespoons Raw Cacao Powder OR 2 tablespoons Fair-trade Cocoa

SERVES: 20 cupcakes  PREP: 30min  COOK­ING: 30min

Preparation

Preheat your oven to 180C.

Toast the coconut in a fry pan over low heat, stirring regularly until just golden.

Combine all ingredients and mix using an electric mixer until thoroughly blended and slightly fluffy.

Place cupcake papers into a cupcake pan and drop a generous, heaped tablespoon of mixture into each cupcake paper so they are filled close to, but not quite to the top.

Bake in the oven for approximately 30 minutes, or until golden and a skewer comes out clean when poked into one of the cakes.

Allow the cakes to cool for 15 minutes and then transfer them to a wire rack and allow to completely cool before icing.

Icing the Cupcakes

Combine all of the icing ingredients in a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until the icing is completely blended and looks shiny.

Fit a piping bag with a wide star-shaped nozzle and fill the bag with icing.

In one motion, pipe the icing onto a cupcake, starting from the outside spiraling in, and then pipe up and around, with an extra squirt at the end to form a tip.

Store in an airtight container until ready to enjoy.

Mister Nice Guy Cupcakes

If you don’t feel like making your own cupcakes and you live in Melbourne, try Mister Nice Guy Vegan Cupcakes. They have an astounding range of delicious flavours and use only organic, fair-trade ingredients. For more information you can read our article about them or visit www.misterniceguy.com.au

We were very excited to learn that Australia has a new vegan cupcake enterprise, Mister Nice Guy. So we sat down with husband and wife owners Lucas and Deb for a serious discussion about all things cupcake (of course it wasn’t a thinly veiled excuse to sample some of their delicious new products *cough cough*)

Can you tell us a little about yourselves and how you came to start up Mister Nice Guy Cupcakes?

Deb Everyone shows their love in different ways; Lucas shows his when he bakes. The first week I met Lucas he made me an Upside-Down Pineapple cake, a Strawberry Shortcake, Mexican Cornbread and Jambalaya, I fell in love with him very quickly and ever since then he’s just kept feeding me.

Cupcake masterminds Lucas and Deb

Lucas That’s right! That’s the way it’s done. I LOVE baking and cooking. I’ve been baking since I was about 11 years old. My father didn’t want me to have sugar when I was a little kid because they thought I had ADHD (new studies show that little kids have lots of energy because they are little kids). I ended up going to live with my great aunt Nancy when I was around 11 years old and I knew that she didn’t know about the rule of no sugar, so when I came home from school I would open her cook books and start baking cakes and whole trays of cookies myself. It was heaven on earth!

I never stopped baking and here I am now doing what I love to do. That’s why the cupcakes are so good!

What’s the story behind your name, and shouldn’t it be Mister and Mrs Nice guy?

Deb We always had the idea of starting up a cupcake business eventually; it was just a matter of when. I’m a graphic designer and was given a job designing a shop sign for an old timey barber which I decided to name ‘Mister Cuts’.The logo I created was a moustache and scissors. I really liked it and kept playing around with the colours and decided not to use it for that job in the end, but kept it for myself instead for some reason…

Mister Chocolate cupcakes

The next night we went to a friend’s party and Lucas made some vegan cupcakes, people there kept telling us that we should start our own business because they were so delicious, then when we went home and I worked on the logo again for Mister Cuts – it just clicked that Mister Nice Guy would be a perfect name if we ever decided to start our own business.

This was only three months ago. It was really weird because things just started falling into place and literally within a few weeks, we had the name, the flavours and the style in mind and Mister Nice Guy Cupcakes was born.

As for the Mrs Nice Guy- I wanted to be Madame Awesome at one stage but it didn’t have the same ring to it as Mister Nice Guy. Maybe one day I’ll bring out some Madame Awesome Cookies or something and kick Lucas’s butt.

One of the great things about your cupcakes, aside from the fact that they taste amazing, is that you go to great lengths to ensure that all your ingredients are vegan and ethically sourced. Was it difficult to create a range of ethical and delicious cupcakes, and if so what are some of the challenges you faced?

Yes please.

Lucas The biggest challenge was to find out how vegan baking works. I’ve always baked but learning how to bake vegan meant learning how to bake all over again. It took several months, but once I figured that out- it was just a matter of what kind of flours and sugars worked best and tasted best- in the end it was always organic. Luckily, we live in Melbourne where there are so many vegans and cruelty-free stores, it gave us immediate access to what we needed, and thanks to this we discovered that there are a lot of ingredients in our cupcakes that are good for you, like coconut oil and Himalayan salt and Raw Cacao powder. Plus Melbourne has a great vegan community and we sensed that there was a need for vegan cupcakes and we felt we had to do it.

Another challenge that I’ve faced is that I have come across people saying that some food items have been organic but only because of money and not because they are actually organic. So that is on the top of our list of things to sort out. Deb and I are activists in many different areas and if someone is going around certifying food items as being organic and from sustainable sources we are going to hold them to it and find out whether they are or not.

Fresh off the production line

You have a large range of cupcakes on offer, ranging from traditional favourites like the chocolate and vanilla, to slightly less traditional offerings such as the fuzzy ewok, red hot riding hood, and zombie brains. what are a few of your favourites and why?

Lucas I love the Peanut Butter Cup as well as the Lazy Way Lane cupcake. I used to sell coconuts to tourists on Lazy Way Lane in Key West Florida, it was a great little hustle I had because the coconuts were free and the tourists had to walk by me to get to the shops!

So I would just sit there and sell them $5 cold and $3 warm, and for a few dollars more when they came back through I would cut them open and make a spoon out of the husk so they could eat the coconut inside. That was an awesome job and the tourists loved it!

Deb Fuzzy Ewok is my favourite, I wanted so badly to name one of them Ewok, I kept sneakily throwing it in there. Then we discovered the best Vegie Burgers at a café called Empire Strikes Back Café who now stock our cupcakes, so the name Fuzzy Ewok is staying for good.

Also, the Zombie Brain Cupcake rocks! Lucas frosts it in a way that it looks like a brain… mmm … delicious!

What sort of reactions have you had so far, from both vegans and non vegans?

Lucas Our first frosting was way too sweet. So I looked into a very old fashioned frosting recipe that uses 75 precent less sugar and uses flour instead. The result was an amazingly creamy and not too sweet frosting that everyone loves! I’m so grateful for feedback from our customers because it really can influence things for the better.

I’ve also heard people tell me that they laughed when they heard we were going to be selling vegan cupcakes and said it would never work. Then they said that people were coming into the café all weekend asking about our cupcakes and that they had tons of business because they were selling our cupcakes in their café! So yeah it surprises non-vegans how great our cupcakes actually taste and that’s what we’re trying to do – change that whole preconception of vegan food.

Orange chocolate cupcake

You’ve had stalls at a few festivals and more and more cafes are starting to stock your cupcakes. How can people find you if they want to try some of your cupcake goodness?

Deb They can visit the café’s we supply which can be found on the info tab on our facebook page, otherwise contact us direct, we deliver for free within Melbourne CBD and the surrounding area, plus we love to meet our customer’s face to face.

What’s next for Mister Nice Guy, are you planning to take over the world, or at least Australia?

Deb We’d really like to get our own bakery shop going, so that people can come in and hang out and eat cupcakes all day, watch a movie or play some old school Nintendo games. The whole point is to make people feel nostalgic and make it a place where everyone is welcome.

We’d love to see our customers and friends every day and a shop front would be great way to do that. Also if we were in a good location we could get non-vegan strays in off the street who just want to eat a cupcake and won’t even realize it’s vegan – and hopefully they’d start feeling more and more comfortable with vegan food.

For all your organic, fair trade, vegan cupcake needs check out the Mister Nice Guy Cupcakes website, or visit the Mister Nice Guy facebook.

We’re thrilled to announce that the new Uproar Online Store is all systems go! Now you can get low cost high quality vegan goodies with all proceeds going directly towards helping animals!

We’re starting out with some fantastic products including the Veg 1 multivitamin formulated especially for vegans (at $15.95 for a three month supply it’s almost a steal), a long lasting aluminum free vegan deodorant (‘Dusk‘ by Herban Cowboy) that actually works, and a pea protein powder which is ideal for use in sports, weight control or as a source of valuable amino acids.

We’ll be adding more products over the coming weeks and hope to eventually become a one-stop-shop-till-you-drop cruelty free online store. Keep checking back as we’ll be adding more and more products very soon – chocolates, mock meats and vegan cheese, egg replacers, nutritional yeast, whipped cream in a can, tee shirts, stickers and much much more. Let us know your favourites and we’ll do our best to get them in.

We ship directly to your door wherever you are in the world, and Victorians have the option of picking up their goods from our St Kilda storeroom. The best part is that all proceeds go directly towards our campaigns to help animals. So by shopping with us you’re not only getting great vegan goods for super cheap prices, you’re helping save animals from abuse.

The Uproar Store – Cruelty Free, Ethical, Vegan Shopping

'Chicken' Schnitzel with hand cut organic chips at Las Vegan Bakery

Renowned for their rice balls, which come served with decadent satay sauce, bean shoots and a tasty salad mix Las Vegan cuts no corners. Most impressive is the use of fresh herbs, which make the dining experience especially memorable. Truly, Las Vegan is an extension of my own kitchen, I am known for going at least twice a week, most recently with my in-laws, who thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

The menu caters for a range of tastes, from healthful soup, chilli ‘non’ carne, calzones (lunch only), sloppy joes and lentil burgers to the faux chicken burger or nuggets, deep fried tempeh and tofu and the faux chicken burger, all of which can be enjoyed whilst sipping on a Henry of Harcourt cider.

Savoury delights are not where it ends either, Michael bakes the most incredible muffins, brownies and cakes. So, if you have room at the end of your meal, which is highly unlikely with their generous servings, you may be able to fit one in with your bottomless chai.

Open from 11am Tuesday through Friday, and until 9pm on Thursday and Friday nights (with Wednesday on the cards too), Las Vegan is a great place to get a bite to eat with friends,

Las Vegan Bakery is located at 22 Smith Street, Collingwood, Victoria and can be reached for bookings on (03) 9415 9001

You’ll be a convert to dairy-free deserts after trying this creamy, sumptuous cheesecake. Use the basic recipe to experiment with different flavours – we’ve shown you lemon and berry varieties.

Base:

1/2 packet Arnotts Nice biscuits (or other vegan variety)
1 handful of raw unsalted Almonds
1/2 cup Nuttlex (or other vegan margarine)
1 spring-loaded cake tin (the type that can open up to remove the cake)

Filling:

1 tub Better Than Cream Cheese (227g)
200g soft tofu
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
200g golden syrup (or to taste)
1 tblspn potato flour (mix to paste with 2 tblspn cold water)
juice of one lemon

For lemon cheesecake:

juice from 2 extra lemons

save one of the lemon skins for grating

Lemon Cheesecake option

For berry cheesecake:

1 punnet of berries (blueberries or raspberries work well)

SERVES: 8  PREP: 30min  COOKING: 40min  COOLING: 2hrs

Preparing the base

Turn on the oven to preheat to 180c.

Place the biscuits on a large chopping board and crush them with a rolling pin. The meal should be gritty and course.

Blend the almonds in a blender until a fine meal and add to the biscuits. Heat the margarine until runny (easiest in the microwave for a minute) and use only as much as necessary by gradually pouring and stirring into the biscuit mixture until the meal can be brought together as a sticky crumbling dough.

Coat margarine over the inside of the spring-loaded cake tin. Sprinkle enough mixture over the bottom of the tin to loosely cover it and then press the mixture down to form the base. Take clumps of the remaining mixture and press half-way up the sides of the tin until the base is complete. Set aside.

Making the mixture

Pour the Better Than Cream Cheese and tofu into a blender. Add the vanilla essence and golden syrup and blend. Mix the potato flour with 2 tblspns water to form a runny paste and add to the mixture. Juice the lemon and pour through a strainer into the mixture. If you’re making the lemon cheesecake, add the extra lemon juice now too. Blend the mixture until smooth and creamy.

If you’re making the berry cheesecake, add the berries (don’t blend).

Pour the mixture into the cake tin and base. If you’re making the lemon cheesecake, sprinkle finely grated lemon rind over the entire top of the mixture.

Place the cheesecake in the 180c preheated oven and bake until it’s changed colour on top and looks set in the center – approx 40min. To check, wobble the tin slightly and the top should wobble as one piece – if it’s still soft in the center bake a little longer.

Place on a chopping board and allow to cool for 15min and then put in the fridge (on the chopping board) and refrigerate until cool.

Serve with dairy-free icecream or Berry Sauce (see below). Yum!

Quick Berry Sauce

If you really want to impress your friends serve the cheesecake with this quick berry sauce.

Simply blend 1 packet of mixed berries (you can use the frozen variety if you like) with some lemon juice and golden-syrup to taste. Blend until smooth.

To serve, pour a quick zig zag in the middle of each plate and use a skewer or fork handle to draw out wavy lines through the sauce. Place a slice of cheesecake on top of the sauce. Serve with dairy-free icecream.