Tuesday 2 December 2008

Cooking with LJ Part 1- Tragedy to Triumph

I have a lovely friend. Her name is LJ, or Lil' Jen. Not to be confused with Jen, or Big Jen. BJ is currently across the seas at the moment living the life in London. So LJ and I must fill the time of her absence by amusing ourselves so we don't sit around missing her. Which we do!

On Monday LJ and I got together to make cupcakes. LJ claims she does not cook. It is effort to cook. Plus her fiance cooks and there are a zillion great places to eat out, so really there is no need. But she confessed a desire to bake for her fiance. And so that is what we did! Interesting results... Come with us, gentle reader, on the story of our Monday....



This is LJ with her special pan she bought. It is a red silicon heart-shaped pan. Very cute! The recipe we chose was Peanut Butter Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. I had hoped they would be firm enough to hold up to not having cupcake liners, as we couldn't find anything heart shaped in that department. Hmmmm...



Carefully reading and preparing the ingredients.



And beating together the liquid ingredients. Mwahahahaha! Take that liquid ingredients.



And, finally, placing the batter into the treasured red heart pan. What happened next.... was... ummm... well, a bit sad really!



Sad Peanut Butter Cupcakes! Not only were they not strong enough to hold themselves together without the liner, but for some reason the silicon pans refused to let go of them. The ones pictured here are from a regular round silicon pan. Sad, smooshed cupcakes. *sniffles*

So, the moral of the story is don't try cupcakes without a liner. If you want something heart shaped, try muffins instead!

But, what to do with this mess? LJ was taking hers home to try nestling them in ice cream so you couldn't see the malformed bottoms. As for mine, I knew I wanted to do something with chocolate. So I made the Chocolate Fudge Sauce from The Joy Of Vegan Baking. I took the smooshed cupcakes and smooshed them into my cute cupcake ramekins. I didn't have any soy icecream in the house (sad) so I topped each with a Sweet And Sara Vegan Marshmallow. Then I poured warm fudgey sauce all over it and sprinkled with chopped peanuts. Behold:



Oh. So. Good. So rich and sugary sweet, so only something to be eaten in moderation. But... wowzer! So, from tragedy to triumph! Hurrah!

6 comments:

  1. Great save! I think the suicidal cuppies were a blessing in disguise~ the new dessert looks super yummy! Truely triumphant~you rock!

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  2. it is heartbraking when baked goods smoosh as you take them out of the tin! good save though, they sound awesome!

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  3. Oh no! But your end result looks scrumptious at least!!

    I've had nothing but disaster with my silicone pan, even with muffins (I know people love theirs but mine has pride of place, smooshed somewhere up the back of my baking cupboard, never seeing the light of day!)

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  4. I can't bring myself to buy any silicon baking moulds, I just don't trust them! But I am sorry your cuppies didn't work in them but your end result looks delish!! I think I need to order some more S&S marshies!

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  5. that sounds like a great way to not waste the cake!! how clever!

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  6. I have used a round silicon cake pan to make the Ginger Pear Pudding from Now Vegan, which has a very sticky toffee on the bottom on the cake pan, and it plunked out fine after baking. Maybe it is the things with the smaller baking area like cupcake pans?

    I bought a silicon Bundt pan a while ago, so hopefully that won't let me down when I get around to using it.

    I remain slightly suspicious of them though.

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