Ashy's Second B-day!

Last year, I did cupcakes, but now that Ash is two, she has a keen understanding what birthdays are all about – cake, candles and presents. Given that I couldn’t simply grab a cake from the store since there aren’t a lot of vegan options around, and I didn’t have the extra cash to outsource the production of a vegan themed cake, I decided to make one – and a big one at that to serve almost 20 people.

I bought 2 9x13 pans, with the goal of stacking the cake so I could serve more people. I had looked at converting other recipes to suit this pan format, but decided to go with something tried and true – Vcon’s Coconut Lemon Bundt Cake. I made the recipe twice in two separate bowls (good idea from my mom, as there’s so much batter that I wouldn’t have had a bowl big enough to mix 2 batches at once!) and baked for about 40-45 minutes, as per this site’s recommendations. It turned out great! I decided to freeze the layers on two separate cookie sheets as I made it the day before the party and find it easier to ice frozen cakes anyways.

And now here’s where my history of birthday disasters begins. I’m not sure what happened. I looked for a frosting with little sugar…maybe agave? All seemed too glaze-like and not fitting my image for what the cake would look like. Again, trying to stick to my tried-and-true mantra, I thought that I would make the same chocolate mousse topping that I did for my mom’s bday, but since I didn’t want to give Ash that this time, I thought I’d use the vegan white chocolate chips I had bought from my overly-expensive Vegan Essentials order last year. I should have noted that the term ‘Decorator's Chips’ is not the same as ‘chocolate chips’ or ‘baking chocolate’. Even though the ingredient listing is only sugar and cocoa butter, these things are waaaayyy to oily to bake with. It might turn out OK in the use of cookies, but once melted, they take on a grainy feel. It was disaster when I mixed them with the silken tofu in my food processor. After Kyle suggested mixing it up better with my immersion blender, things seemed OK – until the morning of the party.

The mousse was a gloopy mess. I tried mixing half of the ‘mousse’ with icing sugar, but I would have needed about 10 lbs of icing sugar just to get the runny mess to be a firm frosting. So I scrapped that and tried to think of another plan. I could go with VCTOTW’s buttercream frosting, but I would want to cut the sweetness with a different middle layer. I then tried heating the other half of the mousse and adding a little cornstarch and coconut extract, thinking I might be able to salvage it and make a coconut cream. Again, these damn chips stayed grainy and it was an even bigger disaster than trying to make the mousse. So I scrapped that too. I then decided to make the same lemon curd I made for my cake this year, and use all Earth Balance for the buttercream frosting (two batches required!). Everything then turned out perfectly. With everything ice cold, the filling didn’t seep out, and I could ice the cake with no issues. I wish I had time to pipe something more elaborate, but Ash was happy with the simplicity of the decorations.



Unfortunately, the disaster didn’t end there. I used the bread recipe Tracy shared with me and attempted to use it for pizza dough. I thought it was pretty runny, but I then stupidly covered it to rise using a dry tea towel. Obviously when I went to bake it, I tore away about half of the dough. Tracy told me it was good, but I’m convinced that she was just being nice.

All in all, I think everyone had fun – especially the birthday girl.

Happy Birthday Mami!

To borrow the title of one of Ash's fave stories...

It’s been so long that I’ve downloaded pics off the camera that I can’t really remember this day all that well. All I know is that I made the Butternut Squash Penne with Sage Pesto and Almonds dish from Skinny B*tch (with chicken tenders, of course) and mom liked it! Tracy also brought some delicious bread – she is now tasked with being the bread baker for our family events! I did end up trying to make my own at a later date:

For her cake, I think I used the chocolate cuppie recipe from VCTOTW and doubled it to make 2 8-inch layers. I used chocolate tofu mousse topping to fill the layers and ice the top, but nearly ran out to do the sides of the cake. So with whatever I had leftover for the mousse, I added melted chocolate chips to make a thick mousse-like ganache. I ‘pasted’ it on the sides and it was good! Definitely mom (and Ashley)-approved!

Mom also revealed that she’s considering adopting a vegetarian diet. I think Tracy nearly fell off her chair. This is after she became violently ill after eating at The Keg. Now that she’s over her illness, I’ll have to follow up on the status of her potential diet change…

Treats for Kyle

Nothing says I love you like a bad leftover cake stored in the freezer, topped with leftover icing and chocolate mousse from making cuppies for a recent b-day party.

But I did well for Kyle's b-day. We started off with homemade Pumpkin Cinnamon Buns from MrsBadMouth's zine. I used canned pumpkin since we were all out of home-roasted and despite the brighter orange colour (almost neon!), I think canned pumpkin is waaayyy easier. Why have I been wasting so much time roasting my own? It's always too runny!

That night, I served up his other b-day request, for a cake that was like a Canadian Maple donut from the other major coffee shop in Canada. So here it is, based on an old Veggie Life recipe:

M"eh"ple Cream Cake

Cake
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white potato, baked, with flesh scooped out
2 tablespoons Earth Balance
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
1 cup soymilk

Filling
1/4 cup raw cashews
3/4 cup cold water
3 ounces firm silken tofu (in asceptic package)
1/2 cup sugar
4 teaspoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla

Glaze
1 tablespoon Earth Balance

1 tablespoon maple extract
2 1/2 cups icing sugar
2 tablespoons boiling water, or more as needed

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray and line two 8 inch round pan with parchment paper on the bottom.

2. In a medium bowl, sift flour, baking powder and salt together.
3. In a separate large bowl, cream potato and Earth Balance. Add the sugar and beat until fully blended and mix is fluffy.
4. Add the vanilla and lemon extracts to the sugar mix and continue to beat.
5. Slowly add soy milk, beating until fully blended. Then add flour mixture, 1 cup at a time, and beat until batter is smooth.
6. Pour into pans and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool in the pan for 20 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool on a rack for at least 1 hour.

7. To make filling, in a blender, grind cashews with 1/4 cup water until smooth, about 1 minute. Add remaining water, washing down sides of blender while doing so and then blend on high for 2 minutes. Add tofu, sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Blend on high until mixture is completely smooth.
8. Pour mixture into a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring constantly. Continue cooking and stirring until mixture is very thick, about 2 minutes.
9. Remove from heat then stir in oil and vanilla. Allow to cool, stir occasionally. At room temperature, cover and refrigerate until chilled, at least 1 hour.

10. To make glaze, stir together maple extract and Earth Balance, then add in icing sugar. Add 1 tablespoon at a time of boiling water until glaze is thick but still pourable.

11. To assemble cake, place one layer on serving surface, dump out filling in centre, then place other cake layer on top, gently pressing down, ensuring filling stays about 1/2 from the edge. Pour on a little glaze to test the consistency, allowing some to fall down the sides. If glaze is too liquidy, add a little icing sugar until right consistency is achieved, then try to pour on cake again.

Now I had doubled the filling since I love it so much and thought I could put it to good use. And I did! I made Boston Cream Cuppies using the same cake recipe, but using Isa's chocolate ganache topping from VCTOTW.

With still even more filling left over in my pastry bag, I decided to pipe it onto some tofu chocolate mousse that was hanging around in the fridge! I even had a little ganache leftover that I did a little decorative touch.

So with all of these sweets, Kyle suggested that we cut down a little. Probably a good idea. Despite our dessert strike, I did negotiate making Dream Bars from Skinny B*tch in the Kitch since they sound so heavenly. I hope to make those this week to cheer us up from our dessert drought!

Ashley Turns One!

More cupcakes! I baked these up during the week and froze them, made the frostings the day before and iced the day of - it was super easy...especially with a little ankle biter yanking on my pants to be picked up all the time! And I know the photo is not totally stylized...we had to hurry to grab a pic since we had 20+ hungry onlookers and a little girl that needed to be served!


For Ash's 1st b-day bash, I made S'mores Cupcakes from VCTOTW that my dad really enjoyed (although he kept calling them Smurf Cupcakes...I guess he never heard of a s'more before?).


Looking for something with more natural sugar for the b-day girl to eat, I made the Vanilla Agave Nectar Cupcakes (half frosted with Vanilla Buttercream and the other half with Not-Too-Sweet Blueberry Mousse...all from VCTOTW too). I was a little scared to use agar, but it seemed to turn out! When I tried the mousse on its own I was worried, since like the title says, it's really not too sweet. But teamed with a cuppie, it was super tasty! For some reason, I also expected a pale blue colour. After the final mixing, I felt relieved to re-read the description that went along with the recipes as it says it's bright purple! I'm going to make these ones again this weekend for the big b-day bash for all the babies in our playgroup. Ash really liked it.




I also made those avocado cuppies I blogged about before, but instead topped with the chocolate tofu mousse from VCTOTW. OMG. My new fave cuppie. The mousse was so thick and really creamy. Yummy!

Vegetables...They're Not Just for Dinner Anymore

They're for dessert too!


I made up VCTOTW Cookies n' Cream Cupcakes, but used this recipe instead. Nothing against the original recipe or anything, but I loved how these turned out when I made them before. Something about the avocado in them that just did something wonderful to the texture. And I had tried freezing them before, with great results. It's my new thing to do - bake up cupcakes a week in advance, make the icing the day before, and ice them the day of the big event. Easy.



For our mom's b-day, I made Boston Cream Cake again. The secret veggie ingredient in this one? Potato! It makes the layer cake so fluffy. Who knew?



Kyle has requested a twist on the BC cake for his upcoming b-day. Same cake, same filling, but with a maple-y glaze similar to a Canadian Maple donut from Tim Horton's. He's also requesting this pie too. I have no idea why I need to make two things, but whatever...can't argue with the birthday boy!

Happy B-day to Me!

I make my own cake for my b-day. I was going to order more cupcakes for my big day this year (after having tried 5 different kinds from Ash's baptism), but I would only order a dozen this time and they were all so good that I couldn't pick just one kind. So I thought I would try and make a ginger cake with lemon icing based on one of the varieties of those cupcakes.


So I doubled the Gingerbread Cupcakes from VCTOTW, and made 2 layer cakes. Similar to other carrot cake disasters, the damn center caved in.



I posted my issue to the PPK and later figured that the batter must have been too moist and there wasn't enough dry ingredients to soak it all up. I wasn't able to serve that up, especially once iced, since I'm sure it would have turned into a sogfest. So after doubling the recipe, I decided to try the recipe again and use 3/4 cup oil instead of 1 cup, omitted the maple syrup, used 3/4 cup sucanat and used about 1 cup of soymilk, while keeping all of the other ingredients and quantities the same. It turned out great! A tasty cake makes being 30-something not so bad :)




PS - I still haven't forgotten about posting the Turtles recipe...I'm lucky that the baby has stayed asleep this long to allow me to create this post ;)

Another Vegan Feast!

Tracy and my mom held a get-together in my honour, and we came together as a great team when it came to making tasty vegan treats!

First, mom supplied cut up veggies for snacking with a vegan soy sour cream-based dip.


She also prepared mini veggie and vegan soy cream cheese tortilla roll-ups, that were gobbled up.


Tracy made yummy sushi in different varieties that included avocado, sweet potato/mushroom and spicy tempeh. Soooo good! One of my non-vegan friends commented that she found it strange that I could eat sushi despite it tasting so 'fishy'...I told her that maybe it was fish that tasted 'seaweedy' instead!


Tracy also made what I call 'tofu bags'...I know there's a proper name for these but I can't remember what it is for the life of me. I love how the sticky rice is so sweet and delicious.


Finally, my contribution was mini toasts with Tofu Dill Salad Sandwich Filling with VwaV. I 'disguised' the tofu with tomato slices.


I also made two varieties of cupcakes - Lemon Macadamia (sans macadamias) and Chocolate and Vanilla Marbled cupcakes - both from VCTOTW. I had made the lemon variety already for Tracy's wedding, but the Marbled variety was new to try! Both were tasty, and my new icing tips ensured a pretty presentation. Kyle did note that my attempt at marbling the icing for the marbled cupcakes looked like seagull crap...fortunately it didn't taste like that! Next time I marble icing, I'll use a more decorative tip than just a large-holed one.

Our Special Day

Yesterday we celebrated something very important to us.



Pete and I wanted to have an intimate, relaxed ceremony at home with our family. And of course, it had to be vegan. Being the busy day that it was, I only got a photo of the whole table after the hungry guests had a few bites.



We had a veggie tray from Farmboy and Dairy-free Ranch Dip from April 2007 VT, a fruit tray with a dip that I made from soy yogurt, strawberries, a banana and agave nectar, Vietnamese Vegetarian Salad Rolls from the Barrhaven Vietnamese Restaurant, hummus and pita, nachos and Farmboy salsa, Parisien Bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and veggie sushi from Ebi Sushi. The owner was sweet enough to open her restaurant early to have the sushi ready for us, and it was excellent. Here is the pre-party tray.



And the piece-de-resistance, a two-vegan-sister effort, with a little help from Isa and Terry, our wedding cupcakes.



Sarah made the Coconut Lime Cupcakes and the Lemon Macadamia Cupcakes (although she subbed almonds for the mac nuts) which were both absolutely spectacular. I heard many compliments about the Lemon Cupcakes in particular, and it is rumoured that Kyle deserves credit for the idea of the lemon rind heart at the top of the icing swirl. I made the Pistachio Rosewater cuppers, which I really liked too. Just a note for anyone that wants to make them identical to the cover of VCTOTW - I think they used the alternate topping suggestion, the Vegan Fluffy Buttercream Frosting, to make them look like that. I actually preferred the Rosewater Glaze for this cupper - it was delicately sweet and didn't overpower the flavour of the cupcake.

We "cut the cake" and enjoyed each of Sarah's cupcakes.



It was a fabulous day and we're grateful that we have so many wonderful people to share it with.

I loved the wedding flowers, by Anika's Arts and Flowers, also in Barrhaven (I gotta plug the local businesses - buy local!)





We're on our honeymoon now, and we didn't even use any fossil fuels getting here.

Hawaii Five Oh!

Our littlest Princess hit the big number five over the weekend, and selected a tropical theme for her party. While having six other princesses over for the afternoon seemed like a mistake at the time, the day turned out to be a success, complete with fashion show, limbo competition and gift-opening brawl. Special thanks go out to the parents of the kids who kindly gifted Princess with real makeup and Bratz dolls.

For lunch, we started with a main course of vegetarian Hawaiian pizza with fresh pineapple and veggie bacon, but it turns out that kids really just want plain pizza.

For the family affair in the evening, we had salads, starting with Vegan Hot German Potato Salad.



This recipe is an old family fav from Betty Crocker's Cookbook, made with Yves Veggie Bacon. I always boil the potatoes in cubed form because I'm lazy, but Mom made this so I don't know what she did.

Next up was Spinach-Mushroom Salad with a french-type dressing.



Not-so-Tropical Spinach Salad Dressing

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup organic ketchup
1/4 cup organic sugar
2 tblsp red wine vinegar
1/4 onion
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/8 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp vegan worchestershire sauce

Blend all ingredients together in a blender.

I found the spinach really absorbed the dressing, so don't add the dressing until immediately before serving. Unfortunately I didn't think to take pics until the folks had dug into the buffet.

Our final salad was Sarah's marinated edamame salad that she blogged about. I love bean salads.

For dessert, Princess pre-selected Pineapple Right-Side Up Cupcakes from VCTOTW, topped with Vegan Buttercream Frosting tinted pink and orange.



These were really good, but I suspect even better with the pineapple-cherry topping as written in the book.

The evening ended with a rousing Hawaiian-Irish-Yogic harmonica solo by Princess that defies description.

Sweet 16

The youngest of our two cool teens turned 16 on Tuesday, and the five of us celebrated the big event last night, complete with VCTOTW's basic chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting. The liners featured Strawberry Shortcake, as per Princess's request.



It was worth the indulgence. Of course, we sent the birthday girl packing with a few cupcake leftovers so we wouldn't eat them.

As the book suggests, I added 1 tsp of rosewater to the icing for a sweet sixteen scent.

Aahh, to be young again.

Want s'more?

I'm working on making every VwaV recipe before the sequel comes out. Maybe I'll even get brave and make Orange-Glazed Beets. Until then, here's Chickpea Broccoli Casserole.



This dish really surprised me. I picked it for a night with Princess, since it seemed rather, well, bland sounding. It wasn't. It's not a dish that you'd want to eat a whole plate of by itself without something else of textural interest, but it's really yummy and "casserole-like". It also inspired me to cook chickpeas in the pressure cooker, which are a thousand times better than canned.

Next up is VwaV's Corn Chowder.



Princess really liked it, as it contains two of her favourite things - potatoes and corn. I liked it too, but if making it for only adults, I would definitely put in the jalapeno. I sacrificed the heat for the "family" version.

On an "adults only" night, I made Dal with Coconut Milk from Mangoes and Curry Leaves, and served over brown rice with spinach.



It was quite simple to prepare, and the coconut milk gave it a rich creaminess. And I got to use curry leaves! I bought these at an Indian grocery about three weeks ago and stored them in a ziploc between paper towels. They were still very fresh.

Last are S'mores Cupcakes from VCTOTW.



Cupcakes are so cute. And caloric.

A Real Fauxstess Cupcake

So I planned to make the Fauxstess Cupcakes from VwaV this weekend. I got all of the ingredients (except the black cocoa - I decided I could live with a lighter brown cupper), and was ready to go. I made the cupcake part, and it turned out great (despite the instructions, I opted to NOT spray the cupcake liners this time - very wise decision). However, I didn't have so much luck in making the Cream Filling. The recipe called for soymilk powder, and not the low-fat variety (I didn't realize you could get 'skim' soymilk powder!) since it would leave a 'taste'. I knew I had soymilk powder, and it wasn't labelled as being 'low-fat' so I thought I was OK. What wasn't OK was that when I was pouring the soymilk powder into the bowl, a whole pile fell in. I tried to salvage the mixture, but it was way too gross. And it had a 'taste' - perhaps I had the 'low-fat' variety after all, or it was just the fact that four times the amount of powder went in :(

Needless to say, I scrapped the filling. I decided to make the ganache. After topping more than 8 cupcakes, I realized that I could've poked a hole in each cupcake and filled them with jam. Kyle told me to keep going and just leave them plain. Problem was, they were just topped with ganache, and not thick and creamy buttercream icing, so they would be really plain. I remembed someone had made the brownie cupcakes, so I decided to top the wet ganache with some walnut pieces. They were awesome. I didn't mind that they didn't turn out as fauxstess cupcakes anyways! It was like an actual fauxstress cupcake...

And we didn't just eat junk food - I made what was supposed to be a porcini mushroom stroganoff that I had made before. It called for dried porcini mushrooms, which were of course sold out at the grocery store, so I made a mix of oyster and some other kind. It didn't taste as good as what I remembered before, but it was still OK. Part of the problem was that I didn't add much salt. This was because I made another Isa Pizza on Friday night, but didn't taste test the pesto before adding it to the pizza. That wasn't smart, since I must have added WAYYY too much salt. Both Kyle and I were dying of a sodium overdose when we ate it on Saturday for our lunches.

So I'm getting a *little* tired of the kitchen disasters. Fortunately, with the Xmas season on it's way, I'll be making some tried and true delectables. It all starts on December 1st with Skor Bars!!! I can't wait!

My Seven-Year Itch Has Been Scratched!

I used to think that these were an urban legend...vegan marshmallows! I'd never seen them in Ottawa, and they certainly weren't stocked by Whole Foods in the San Francisco area at the beginning of this decade. Finally, after seven years of wanting to find these, I have them! It was such a great early Xmas present to get these!!! I now have to carefully ration these when deciding what recipes to make!

More glimpses of my carrot cake cupcakes...once totally chilled in fridge, everything looks normal and I'm exaggerating about my carrot problems, right?

Well, they are very dense, considering that with icing, they are the same height as a toonie:

Especially, when half of the height is accounted for by the icing:

But regardless, they taste SO good!

Tonight, I was going to make a pasta dish I had planned, but forgot to buy fresh mushrooms, so I made Potato Yam Leek Soup from Extraveganza. It was really good! I was surprised by how flavourful it was, and the dill and sweet potato really stood out. It was also pretty quick to make, despite making cubes out of 6 white potatoes and 1 sweet potato, and cutting up a pile of leeks. Good thing it didn't take long, as tonight is my last night to study for this certification thing I need for my job.

Now I better get back to studying! Well, once America's Next Top Model is over, anyways...

Sarah + Carrots = Disaster

If you had read my post about Tracy's Birthday, you would know that I don't have much luck with baking carrot-based creations. I was assured from many PPKers that if I tried VwaV's Carrot Cake, my creation would be great. Being the optimist I am, I told myself that I would yet again try to come up with an edible and equally presentable carrot creation.

So today, when I was supposed to be studying for my certification and/or vacuuming (neither of which is a desirable task), I thought that I should make some cupcakes. I thought that my blog entries have been a little bland lately, and a cupcake is more fun to post than a bowl of soup or uncooked gnocchi. I whipped out my copy of VCTOTW, and started to flip through the pages to find something that I already had the ingredients for. I first stumbled across the basic chocolate cupcake, and thought that it would be do-able. After a few more pages, I found today's cupcake: Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing. I had flashbacks to all of the horrible carrot cakes I had made in the past - way too damp, dense and greasy...but I knew that Isa and Terry would be able to help me erase those all too vivid memories of carrot cakes past.

Everything was going so well. I grated the carrots (and re-read the recipe to make sure that I didn't have to drain them or something), and prepared the mixture. I then read a strange step:


Spray the cupcake liners??? Odd, I thought, but I performed the task anyways. I'd do anything weird if it helped me right the many carrot wrongs! I poured the mixture into each liner, baked for 29 minutes until a toothpick came out clean, then let them cool.

So far so good, right? I thought that they looked a little too moist, but convinced myself that I was being too critical. I then prepared the frosting. The recipe called for soy cream cheese, Earth Balance, icing sugar and vanilla. Since the cupcake recipe had called for 1/3 cup soy vanilla yogurt, I had a little left over in my tub. I'm not a fan of the Tofutti hydrogenated oil/tofu combo, so I opted to use the yogurt in lieu of the cream cheese and vanilla. The icing turned out great!

I was going to use my new pastry bag set, but I was too lazy. Already, too much time had gone by without studying or vacuuming, so I couldn't waste any more time on something that wasn't totally necessary. I just used a knife, but it still looked pretty:

I had spoken to my mom earlier in the day, and found out that Tracy, Pete and Princess were going to pay her a visit tonight for some tea. Perfect, I thought, as I could take over Tracy's favourite dessert! Due to all of the disappointments I had created in the past, I decided to taste test one cupcake. Good thing I did:

In case you can't tell what this is: it is actually a cupcake after an attempt at peeling off the liner. Just like every other carrot creation, it was way too damp, dense and greasy. It didn't even remain intact! I called my mom and left a message that they would have to fend for themselves tonight for dessert :(

Does this happen to anyone else? Do the carrots shipped to Ottawa have a higher water content than those found in other locales? I just don't get what I do wrong!

I hate carrots.