vegan cupcake question

I am not much of a cook but seeing i am here in denver with my sister and nephews I wanted to make them some nice vegan cupcakes.

I attempted to make chocolate orange cupckes with a buttercream frosting.

My first question is: Do you have to use muffin tin liners?

I did not and they fell apart. I greased the muffin tins so I do not understand why they all stuck.

Also, the frosting. I used equal parts confectioners sugar, margarine and shortning (all vegan of course) and it came out really stiff and hard. What did I do wrong?

I am not much of a cook, so all of your help would be appreciated.

I've never tried cupcakes without liners. It's worth the investment, I'd say. As for the icing - make sure the shortening and the margarine are at room temp before combining. Then, thorougly beat the shortn./marg. mixture before adding confectioners sugar. Add vanilla (or other flavoring) to the mix along with a T or so of soymilk, soy creamer or coconut milk. Add the confectioners sugar GRADUALLY! If it gets too stiff, slowly add more soymilk/liquid (1 t at a time).

Also, when cooking cupcakes, be sure to remove the cupcakes from the pan immediately after removing the pan from the oven. If they cool in the pan, you are trapping the heat and risking soggy cupcakes.

Hope that helps.

I've made cupcakes without the liners once before and had problems with them sticking, too. It might work if the pan is sufficiently oiled, but I was probably a bit stingy with the oil.

Thanks for all the good advice.

I did try to remove the cupcakes as soon as I took the out of the oven

and the tops feel off.

As for the frosting, I did not add any milk at all. Now I know.

The family will be trying my creation tonight so I will see how they taste.

They don't look like cupcakes at all so i do hope they taste better than they look. But I put a bunch of grand marnier in them so that may help.

Thanks again