Cupcakes Available For Purchase!

Great news: Cookies and Cream Cupcakes are now available for purchase in the Etsy Shop!

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes, $14 for six

After much thought and consideration, I've decided to make these yummies available to vegans across the United States. Obviously, it's not easy to ship a frosted cupcake. They'll be shipped unfrosted with a container of frosting on the side, so you can apply it yourself. Think of all the fun and creative possibilities! In the future, I'd like to offer cupcake kits that will include a variety of different decorations for you to play with. So keep your eyes open for that.

For now, check out my cupcake trial run. If all goes well, there will be many different flavors for you to choose from in no time!

Cupcakes Upon Cupcakes!

Over the weekend, the fiancé and I attended a wonderful family party to celebrate his grandparents' 56th wedding anniversary and a housewarming for his cousins. To help celebrate, we decided to bring along some cupcakes. I made two dozen, as there would be a pretty big group. For the first dozen, I made the Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting, as they've been so popular lately (plus, they're seasonally appropriate). For the second dozen I wanted to try something new. I had been thinking about making a cookies n' creme cupcake for a long time, and thought this would be a great opportunity. Then of course, I realized that there's a recipe for the same thing in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. So much for originality. I went for it anyway, and stole Isa and Terry's idea of cutting an Oreo in half as a garnish for the top. They turned out so yummy!

The box of all 24 cupcakes

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting and a candied pecan

 

Cookies N' Creme Cupcakes with crushed cookies in the batter & frosting

I got a few new oversized pastry tips at Surfas Kitchen Supply, and I'm really happy with how they worked out. It took me a little while to get the hang of it (you can see a few cuppies that are a little lopsided), but once I did I started getting great results. Also, I'm glad I made two dozen, because almost all of them were eaten! So all in all, grand cupcake success!

Halloween Party

Hope everyone had a safe and wonderful Halloween weekend! I know that Halloween has passed, but I wanted to share with you some highlights from our party on Saturday night. The food was delicious (if I do say so myself), and the decór was a lot of fun. The fiancé and I worked our butts off all day Saturday, but it was worth it. I think everyone had a great time, and I know I did!

Halloween Luminary

Boo! Door Sign

We greeted our guests with some cute Halloween decorations outside: homemade luminaries along the walkway and a festive "Boo!" garland on the front door. For the luminaries, I drew halloween shapes on to white paper bags with a sharpie marker. Then, I filled the bottom with sand and placed a tea light candle inside. We had seven total luminaries, four on the walkway and three on the porch. For the "Boo!" sign, I bought glittery letters that were made for scrapbooking, and pasted them on to construction paper circles. I used a white grease pen (aka China Marker) to make the polka dots around the outside. Then I attached them to a string of black beads and attached the whole thing to the front door.

The bar, nicknamed "Lethal Libations"

The mantle with gourds, pumpkins, and spiderwebs

Creepy pictures in the photo frames

"Bloody" Candles

Inside the house, we decorated with colorful fabrics, gourds, spiderwebs, and red roses. Using images from the Graphics Fairy, I replaced all of our photos with spooky vintage drawings and etchings. I also made "bloody" candles and placed them throughout the house. I didn't have any taper candle holders, so I used old wine bottles instead. I think they added a more gothic feel to the table and mantle. To make the candles look "bloody," I lit a red candle and let the wax drip on to the white ones. Super simple!

And now for the FOOD! Which is going to make this post pass for a Vegan MoFo post, right? Right.

Maniacal Stuffed Mushrooms

Sinister Sandwiches

Autumn Latkes with Horseradish "Sour Cream"

Savory Pumpkin Puffs

For appetizers and finger food, we made a nice variety of dishes from some of my favorite cookbooks. The first, the "Maniacal Stuffed Mushrooms," are better known as the Panko Stuffed Mushrooms from Veganomicon. Next were mini "egg" salad sandwiches, from the Tassajara Cookbook. The Autumn Latkes with Horseradish Sour Cream also came from Veganomicon, and were an unexpected surprise. I hadn't made them before, but they went over really well. Also, the beets in them made them reddish and spooky looking! Finally, I veganized a Martha Stewart recipe for Savory Pumpkin Puffs by using vegan puff pastry, Earth Balance, and Daiya cheese. I also added more paprika to the "butter"spread on top to make them a little more orange. They were delicious, and looked adorable!

Spiced Pumpkin Pecan Cookies

Halloween Cupcakes

A clearer shot of the cupcakes

For dessert, we had my Spiced Pumpkin Pecan Cookies, as well as vanilla and chocolate Halloween-themed cupcakes. Both were a big hit! To display the cupcakes, I put together a festive two-tiered cake stand using some dishes and black fabric. It was a little dark, so I also threw in a picture of the cupcakes right after we frosted them. I think they're quite adorable. 

I think the party was a huge success. Almost everyone dressed up, and they looked great. We had a Raggedy Ann and Andy, Magenta from Rocky Horror Picture Show, Leela from Futurama, a homemade superhero, an adorable black cat, a nerd, and Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's. Fiancé squeezed himself into a child-size purple crayon costume, which was hilarious. I capitalized on my ridiculous new braces and went as a nerd child. The food was devoured, and so was the wine. That, to me, is the sign of a very good party. Success! 

What did you do for Halloween this year?

BabyCakes at M Café

Last night, the fiancé and I met up with friends for dinner and visited one of our favorite spots, M Café in Culver City. If you haven't been, M Café serves up contemporary macrobiotic cuisine in a European-style café setting. They have some really yummy and super-healthy dishes on the menu, and because it's macrobiotic, they don't use any refined sugars, eggs, dairy, red meat or poultry. It's not entirely vegan, as they do serve fish, but as long as you stick to the non-fish menu options, you can be sure that what you get is vegan. They offer really beautiful and tasty seasonal deli salads, fun varieties of sushi, and decadent pastries and desserts. To top all this goodness, M Café recently started carrying sweets from the famous BabyCakes NYC, a vegan and (mostly) gluten-free bakery that I've been dying to try. Most exciting!

a winning combination!

After stuffing myself with the ridiculously scrumptious sweet potato fries, my absolute favorite bistro salad, and a lovely Malbec, I couldn't help it... I had to try a cupcake! It was Vegan Cupcake Thursday, after all. It was the end of the day, and the pickings were slim, but I managed to nab one of the last vanilla cupcakes. It had been in a refrigerated case, so it was a little cold, but the verdict remains positive! This gluten-free cutie had great flavor and was perfectly sweet! I loved the frosting the most. Yum! You can view the BabyCakes at M Café menu here. 

the vanilla cupcake

There have been rumors of BabyCakes opening a West Hollywood location, which I think would be a mighty fine choice. Currently, their only L.A. storefront is downtown, which for those of us who tend towards the West, is a bit of a drive. But for now, you can check out gluten-free yumminess at your local M Café: a double-win scenario, because you can chomp down on some delicious vegan food first (try the Big Macro Burger, trust me). What are you waiting for? Go!

More Cupcakes!

Well, our engagement photo shoot went off without a hitch! If you read my post about upcoming projects, you know that I had a lot to do to prepare! One of the settings for the shoot was a picnic, and naturally we wanted to have some pretty baked goods as props. So, a few days before, I prepared two types of cupcakes to use. We wound up only using one (the chocolate), but I think they both turned out pretty. In the hulaballoo of it all, though, I didn't manage to snap pictures of the prettiest ones. I did take shots of some of the leftovers, though, so those'll have to do for now.

Cupcake Friends!

The first type of cupcake was a double chocolate buttercream with chocolate shavings on top. This flavor is based off a cake I enjoyed a little too often back in my pre-vegan days; Alcove Cafe's See's Chocolate Candy Cake. It was (and probably still is to non-vegans) ridiculously rich and delicious. Basically, it's a rich chocolate cake with pieces of See's chocolate in it, covered with rich buttercream frosting, and topped with melted chocolate and chocolate shavings. Sounds decadent, right? When I first went vegan, one of my first missions was to veganize this cake. It went very well. You can read all about that at my old blog, here. It only seemed natural to make this a cupcake, since I'm pretty sure I based the recipe off a cupcake recipe in the first place. I love it when things are cyclic. And so, the double chocolate buttercream cupcake was born! The double chocolate comes from the chocolate chips inside the cake, if you were wondering.

Double-Chocolate Cupcake with Buttercream Frosting

The second cupcake was a vanilla agave cupcake. I love the flavor of agave, it sort of reminds me of what the lovechild of maple syrup and honey would taste like. It's so warm and sweet! It blended really nicely with the vanilla flavors, too. This cake was moist and flavorful! For frosting, I did a repeat of the buttercream, as the recipe makes SO MUCH frosting. I think that next time, though, I might try a glaze of some sort, or something a little less sweet. The two tasted good together, but I think that a better pairing might remain to be seen.

Vanilla Agave Cupcake

All in all, I'm very pleased with how these turned out! The flavors were great, and everyone seemed to love them. With a few more trials, I'll be ready to add these and the pumpkin cupcakes to the Etsy shop! I just need to figure out how to ship that frosting...

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

It's official! I have finally ventured into the world of cupcakes. I know it took me forever, as the great cupcake craze started five years ago or so, but now that I'm on board I think I've created a pretty awesome cupcake.

Pumpkin Spice Cupcake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

If you haven't noticed, I've been sort of obsessed with fall lately (I'm pretending it's not 113 degrees outside right now), especially all the amazing flavors of the season. I've been craving pumpkin most of all, and I've been trying my darndest to make an awesome something-or-other with it. It seemed the obvious choice for an experimental cupcake. I wanted the flavor to reflect pumpkin pie, so I included many of the spices you'd find in the dessert: cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice.

When it comes to frosting, I usually go with my favorite, buttercream, but I've been so eager to try vegan cream cheese that I thought I'd take a risk and go for it. I never liked real cream cheese in my pre-vegan days, so the idea of purchasing vegan cream cheese never occurred to me. However, just as I found out that Vegenaise is far superior to its omnivorous alternative, I learned that vegan cream cheese rocks. I might just use it on a bagel or something! Call me crazy! I was even more delighted to find that it makes a ridiculously delicious and creamy frosting. I added some cinnamon and voila!  The perfect compliment to my little pumpkin spice cake.

What a cutie!

Finally, I thought this adorable dream of a cupcake could use a little something extra on top. My BFF Gwen makes a pumpkin-pecan pie every Thanksgiving, and if you ask me, it's the best thing ever. Her version combines my two favorite pies seamlessly to create a maddeningly delicious dessert. So now that she's ruined me for most other pumpkin desserts, I had to put a candied pecan on top. So you can thank Gwen for that.

I'm currently working on a plan for shipping these little nom-noms so that I can have them available on Etsy. So keep your eyes open for that. In the meantime, get out there and enjoy some fall flavors!

Vegan Cupcake Thursday

Ok, so I know it's not Thursday, but I recently found out about a really fun blog all about one of my favorite subjects, vegan cupcakes! Vegan Cupcake Thursday is a blog "all about debunking the myth and proving that VEGAN cupcakes taste good and no animals need to be harmed for your minute of pleasure." Now that's a mission statement I can get behind.

the adorable logo.

Vegan Cupcake Thursday is run by the lovely Roni Seabury, who is a fellow member of the Vegan Etsy Team. I was so pleased to find her blog, which is wonderfully witty (read her clever "about" page here) and features awesome bakers from all over the country, including mouth-watering photos of their wares. So, next time you're ready for some eye-candy (pastry?), check out Vegan Cupcake Thursday!

Guess what I'll be doing next Thursday? Baking cupcakes, you betchya!