Chocolate Lava Cupcakes

My daughter wanted to try making chocolate lava cupcakes after seeing our favorite chef, Curtis Stone (from TLC's 'Take HomeChef' - yum!) make some absolutely decadent ones... but we didn't have much luck finding a vegan recipe. (And while I LOVE 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World' we came up short finding what we wanted there too).

So we experimented with a basic vegan chocolate cake recipe and (after a couple disasters) came up with these!














Chocolate Lava Cupcakes
2 1/2 cups flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2ups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons applesauce
2 Tb. En-R-Gee egg replacer and 1 Tb. ground flax, mixed WELL with 1/4 c. soymilk
2 cups water
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons vinegar
2 teaspoons baking soda

Filling:
1/2 cup Hershey's syrup
1 cup vegan chocolate chips

Topping:
2 Tb. cocoa powder mixed with 1 Tb. granulated sugar

Heat oven to 375.

Make Filling:
Mix Hershey's syrup and cocolate chips together and melt in microwave or over double boiler. Mix well, remove from heat and allow to cool in fridge, stirring once or twice.

Make Cupcakes:
Mix dry ingredients.
Mix wet ingredients and pour into dry ingredients.
Mix well, but don't over-mix.

Line cupcake tins with paper liners - or grease VERY well. (We did this because we had run out of papers. It can be done, but is SO tricky getting the cakes out unbroken).

Put batter in cupcake pan, filling cups 2/3 full. Bake for 15 min.

Remove from oven.
Spoon a teaspoon size 'blob' of chilled filling onto each cupcake and poke down into batter a bit so the batter oozes up over it a bit. Sprinkle with cocoa powder.

Return to oven and bake another 10+ min. or so, until set up and edges are firm and dry.
Serve warm with vanilla vegan ice cream of your choice.

I know altitude can affect cakes and such... I'm curious to know if these turn out as yummy for you as they did for my Sprout - it took us a few trials to get it right (though, not to worry - all the "imperfect" versions still tasted good...).