Normally, I don’t truck with food coloring, adorable little bottles with pointy elfin hats not withstanding. The natural color of most good-for-you food is an eye-feast all on its own. Cases in point: snap peas, bell peppers, carrots, sweet potatoes, radishes… But for Easter, I realize some artificial pigmentation might be in order. What better way to celebrate the resurrection of your Lord and Savior than some fluorescent food? It goes so well with cellophane grass. Instead of coloring egg shells, though, why not dye vegan mint icing with that little green phial in the dunce cap? That’s what I did when I was home in Jersey for the Easter weekend, following the icing recipe here.
The cupcake base for these is Your Basic Chocolate Cupcake (37). Isa & Terry direct us to add 1 teaspoon mint extract to the wet ingredients of the cupcakes, a step which I neglected to follow. Can’t say I was being rebellious, just near-sighted. Perhaps it was the after effect of driving around north Jersey in search of mint extract – for some reason, grocery stores up there are violently opposed to stocking a decent extract section in their baking aisle. Vanilla can only do so much! I finally found peppermint at King’s, the fancy-schmancy grocery store where my grandpa likes to pick up strange and exotic things like rice crackers and stollens. I bet you don’t even know what a stollen is. I don’t either, but there’s been at least one in my freezer since 1987.
Anyway. So the mint icing ended up on top of regular chocolate cupcakes. And Quick Melty Ganache (160) ended up on top of the mint icing. It made a nice chocolate-mint-chocolate sandwich. Think Peppermint Patty. Or Marcy. Whatever’s your pleasure. I look forward to making these cuppers again, when I can add the extra extract to the batter and up the mintiness. Don’t worry if you forget, too, though—the icing is plenty minty. Like Terry & Isa say, it needs the Ganache to balance the mint’s bite. But when it’s got that Ganache, it’s a match made in artificially-green-colored heaven.
