Are you Fasting?

Easter is right around the corner, and many people are fasting in preparation for this holiday. And the Greek Orthodox way of fasting is a little stricter than the one my friends used to do when I lived in Los Angeles: they picked 1 thing and stopped doing it for the 40 days of lent.
For example, if they thought they ate too much chocolate during the year, they would completely stop eating anything chocolate for 40 days (Don't panic, this is an example...I do not know anyone who gave up chocolate!).

Are you ready for the Greek Orthodox way? You go VEGAN for 40 days!!! Now if you are vegetarian or vegan, you don't mind, but if you love meat, and CHOCOLATE and all those great sweets that use milk and butter...then WHAT?? (P.S. for those of you that don't know what vegan is..-I recently found out myself. I only knew vegetarian- vegans are those who choose NOT to eat any meat products or products that come from animals such as milk, butter, eggs, etc. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). But don't panic! More and more people are becoming vegan nowadays, so the ideas are starting to flood the internet.

So going back to where many people are fasting...since Easter is around the corner? Ok there. Many are asking for vegan sweets. And the 2 things I have suggested before were my Pecan Bars that I can turn into a Pecan Tart, and the Crumb-Topped Apple Pie. Simple modification: Instead of butter for the crust, you use shortening. But these are what people are ALREADY having for the fasting, so they want something else, something different. So I stumbled upon a Chocolate Cupcake Recipe in one of my books, that looked a little like this:

These Bad Boys?? ALL VEGAN!! Even the frosting! There's some basic things that change in a vegan recipe. Instead of butter, you use oil/shortening, instead of milk, you use soy milk or almond milk (depending of the flavor you want to give your cupcakes, too). And of course milk chocolate changes for dark chocolate, since the latter doesn't contain milk.

The frosting came out bright white since it had no butter. I used shortening and soy milk along with powdered sugar and a bit of vanilla.

I made these for my mum's birthday. She wanted to treat everyone at work, so I made mini cupcakes for her. She said people were fighting over them. I'm glad to hear that. My fiance ate about 8 of the regular size cupcakes of these. I guess it's a success!