Claire Ptak’s Vegan Chocolate-Frosted Devil’s Food Cupcakes

These moist, rich devil’s food cupcakes finished with a light, silky-smooth chocolate “buttercream” are a vegan creation of Claire Ptak, cookbook author, food stylist and owner of Violet Cakes in London. Dutch-processed cocoa delivers deep, dark flavor in the cupcakes, which come together quickly and easily. Flaxseed meal acts as a binder in the cupcake batter, doing some of the work that eggs would in a standard cake batter. If you prefer to grind whole flaxseeds, pulverize 13 grams, or 1½ tablespoons, in a spice grinder; you’ll wind up with about 2 tablespoons ground flax. To make the frosting, Ptak aerates vegan butter (or margarine) and powdered sugar in a stand mixer, then enriches it with melted vegan chocolate. For frosting with the best flavor and color, seek out a bittersweet chocolate with about 70 percent cocoa solids that’s delicious enough to eat out of hand. Keep in mind that not all sugar is vegan. One way to make sure the sugar you’re using is vegan, purchase organic white sugar for the cupcake batter and organic powdered sugar for the frosting.