Vegan cupcakes take over the world

Want to try something new with your Valentine? Try baking up some sweet treats that avoid animal products. Raising dairy cattle uses a ton of resources, so when we cut back on consumption, we can reduce our carbon footprint as much as if we drove a hybrid car.

Baking without dairy, eggs, or butter may seem like a contradiction in terms. But you'll find tons of cookbooks and websites to help. The Post-Punk Kitchen has a handy vegan baking 101 tip sheet to start you off.

Eggs can be replaced with silken tofu, soy yogurt, finely ground flax seeds, even a banana. Milk is easily swapped with soy, rice, or almond milk. And of course you can use margarine instead of butter, or use vegetable oil in a reduced amount.

One of the most popular desserts around is probably the cupcake. It's so trendy that specialized cupcake-only bakeries have opened up around the U.S., and brides are ordering cupcakes instead of wedding cakes. The book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World has taken this fad and made it eco-friendly and so have many green bloggers.

Want some inspiration before you hit the kitchen? Check out the luscious-looking vegan cupcakes photo pool on Flickr or the vegan baking pool. Now that your mouth is watering, let's get cooking.

The Bittersweet Blog has yummy recipes such as classic chocolate cupcakes and root beer float cupcakes. The only unusual ingredient in these is soy milk, which most major grocery stores carry. For people with Celiac disease, there's even a wheat-free version of the root beer float cupcakes.

Chocoholics will be tempted by the name of this recipe: too much chocolate for you, cupcake. These rich treats from the Have Cake, Will Travel blog use Dutch-process cocoa, plus chocolate chips. The same site has a more subtle recipe for low-fat rosewater cupcakes.

The Vegan Feast Kitchen whips up a almost-no-fat chocolate cupcake (earth-friendly and waistline-friendly!). And the Vivacious Vegan combines two great tastes into a banana peanut butter cupcake.

And if you're all cupcaked-out, how about some other Valentine's Day sweets? Start with heart-shaped strawberry muffins for your love.

Then try these surprisingly easy dark chocolate truffles. Even simpler are puff pastry chocolate 'ravioli' -- so elegant and charming, you shouldn't save them for just February.

If you're really ambitious, give authentic (and still vegan) petit fours a shot. Your loved one will be truly impressed.