No one goes to a restaurant and says, “I’ll have a sugar-flavored cake.” Chocolate is a flavor. Vanilla is a flavor. Sugar is an ingredient, not a flavor. Saying you ate sugar-flavored dessert is as redundant as ordering pizza with cheese. Except when you burn sugar, then you’ve got sugar-flavored dessert. In that case, it’s called caramel.

As much as I and 99% of the world love chocolate, I use it as a crutch in baking. It’s very hard to make a bad dessert with chocolate, and I wonder if everyone’s tired of hearing me talk about and cook with it. To challenge myself, I decided to make a “plain” dessert. No spices, no fruit and most of all, no chocolate.

I’ve been intrigued by the traditional Southern caramel cake. Through cryptic hints, a native Mississippian (who I interviewed for the AP) told me that the icing is cooked in a cast iron skillet and enrobes some kind of butter cake. Pastry chef Shuna Fish Lydon’s caramel cake recipe seemed like a good place to start, but the process involved making caramel syrup and letting it cool before adding it to the batter and frosting. Plus, I didn’t feel like ingesting about three sticks of butter. I also didn’t have any powdered sugar for the frosting.

For the sake of simplicity, I made Golden Vanilla Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. A touch of heart-healthy canola oil is beaten with sugar, soy milk and apple cider vinegar. The vinegar thickens the soy milk, tenderizes the cake and also adds flavor. Apple cider vinegar is a staple in the vegan kitchen; it makes soy products taste like sour cream. White vinegar also works, but it’s plain, just as canola oil is bland compared to olive oil.

Then you add your standard flour, salt, leavening agents and cornstarch (to mimic silky cake flour). What I liked about the recipe was its simplicity, and it wasn’t too sweet.

Unfortunately, the texture was more like a muffin. I’ve had several vegan baking flops like this banana bread, and I’m convinced that vegan baking will always fall behind. Part of the problem is no butter; aerating butter with sugar creates a delicate, even crumb like that in pound cake. Sarah Phillips, author of The Healthy Oven Baking Book, says you can cream oil with sugar and eggs (egg whites create a nice foam). But creaming oil and sugar just isn’t going to happen. Unless you resort to vegan butter substitute, vegan cakes are mixed via the muffin method. You just mix wet and dry ingredients, which yields irregular air pockets. The cake was very good for what it was, but it wasn’t good enough for me. I challenge you, readers, send me a vegan dessert recipe that behaves as well as a conventional one. If I find one I love, I’ll send you…something.

For the frosting, I started with Nigella Lawson’s brown-butter frosting from How to Be a Domestic Goddess. I deviated from the recipe by heating the sugar with the butter. I wanted to make the caramel flavor strong, and I needed to dissolve my granulated sugar anyway. (The original recipe calls for browning the butter alone and adding powdered sugar when it’s cool.) Del Posto pastry chef Nicole Kaplan says you should let caramel go to black death, but unless you’re experienced with sugar, I wouldn’t recommend going that far.

I stood in front of the stove, daring myself to let the caramel go darker: “It looks like honey. Now it’s like maple syrup. Ooh, now it’s mahogany. Keep going to black death, keep going…Oh no, it’s smoking. What is that smell?” I quickly took the pan off the heat and added soy milk to keep the whole thing from solidifying like a lollipop. I accidentally added too much milk and had to add more sugar to thicken it and temper the bitterness. Even though I used superfine sugar, my frosting was still a little grainy. So, use powdered sugar for the final adjustments.

Caramel Cupcakes

For the Golden Vanilla Cupcakes:
From Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz
Makes 12

Ingredients:

1 cup soy milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp cornstarch
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
2 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F and line muffin pan with cupcake liners.
2. Whisk the soy milk and vinegar a measuring cup and set aside a few minutes to get good and curdled.
3. In a large bowl, sift the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir to combine.
4. In a separate large bowl, beat together the soy milk mixture, oil, sugar and vanilla. Stir the dry ingredients and mix until no large lumps remain.
5. Fill cupcake liners two-thirds full and bake for 20-22 minutes till done. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely before frosting.

For the Caramel Frosting:
(Make at your own risk; this is a developing recipe)
Adapted from How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson
Frosts 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:

10 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/4 sticks)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp milk, plus a couple more Tbsp as needed (soy is fine)
1/3-2/3 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. In a medium saucepan (preferably cast iron, because it contributes a deep flavor), combine the butter, sugar and salt over medium heat. Stir and cook until it turns mahogany, about 10-15 minutes. Remove the caramel from the heat and stir in 2 Tbsp of milk. Mixture will sputter and boil rapidly. Transfer the caramel to a bowl and let it cool for a couple hours or overnight.
2. With an electric mixer, beat the caramel with powdered sugar and milk until the sweetness and texture are to your liking. The consistency should be thick and spreadable, like mayonnaise. Add the vanilla. Frost on cooled cakes.
3. Refrigerate leftover frosting and spread on pancakes, waffles, biscuits and muffins.