Animal Lib QLD Bake Sale at The Green Edge

On Sunday I organised another bake sale for Animal Lib QLD, held once again at The Green Edge. This time we had several volunteers baking for us as well, which was wonderful! Of course, I baked a lot of things as well because I am a panic bake sale baker.

Because I live on the edge, I make a lot of new and never before made recipes for the bake sale. So here's the new things I tried.

Gluten-Free Blueberry Muffins from Keep It Vegan by Aine Carlin: I made a double batch of these (a single batch makes six) for the GF table. These large muffins are based on chickpea flour, ground almonds and desiccated coconut and are sweetened with a lot of maple syrup (making them a bit more expensive to make than I realised). They are also loaded up with blueberries. Aine recommends leaving them at least a day before eating. They were lovely. Very moist, so many blueberries. I used the applesauce option instead of banana for them. I also needed to bake for an extra 20 minutes.
Rating: :)



Rum and Raisin Gluten-Freedom Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero: Another GF offering. I used the Chocolate GF Cupcake from VCTOTW as my base, but the rum and raisin was my own inspiration. I added rum extract and raisins to the batter, and topped them with the ganache recipe from the book but with some more rum extract added.
Rating: :)



Chloe's Award-Winning Chocolate orange Cupcakes with Candied Orange Peel from Chloe's Vegan Desserts by Chloe Coscarelli: You can see the tragedy that befell these cupcakes - the ganache went grainy. It was a very sad moment, because I put a lot of work into them. But I didn't have time or ingredients to make more, and it still tasted OK, so I had to settle for ugly cupcakes. I think it was the coconut milk and melting the chocolate with it in the microwave? Anyway. These are chocolate orange cupcakes, filled with an orange buttercream (I ended up with half of this left over), topped with chocolate orange ganache and decorated with candied orange peel. I am not a fan of making candy things, even though they were pretty. It was a hot and sticky mess, and I burnt my finger. Which made the ganache fiasco all the sadder. Still, they tasted good!
Rating: :) even with the crappy ganache



Peanut Butter and Banana Cupcakes with Peanut Buttercream from Cookin' Crunk by Bianca Phillips: Technically these should be peanut banana cupcakes, as there is no peanut butter in the batter, instead there are crushed peanuts. I needed to bake these cupcakes for nearly an hour (rather than 25 minutes) to get the toothpick to come out clean (it wasn't just the banana, it tasted like raw batter still). The long baking time coupled with them being oil free meant they were a bit on the dense side, but tasted great. And that was balanced out by huge mounds of peanut buttercream frosting.
Rating: :)



My Favourite Maple Walnut Blondies from The Easy Vegan Cookbook by Kathy Hester: These were a little perplexing as there was no baking powder or soda in the recipe. The description does say that they are impossibly fudgelike, but I added 1/4 tsp of baking powder just to give them a little bit of rise. I also added a few drops of maple extract, which along with the maple syrup gave them a very strong maple flavour. The recipe called for melted coconut oil, but I used melted Nuttelex. And I also used brown sugar for coconut sugar and a mix of 2/3 AP flour and 1/3 whole spelt flour instead of whole-wheat pastry flour.
Rating: :)



Macadamia and White Chocolate Crispy Treats (with Strawberry) from 500 Vegan Recipes by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman: I don't like white chocolate, and had a block of white chocolate with strawberry chunks that I got in a mystery box. So using it to make something for a bake sale seemed sensible. These cripsy treats set up and held together perfectly! Because there were some strawberry chunks in the chocolate (which was melted, but the chunks remained), I added 1 tsp of strawberry extract to give the whole thing a strawberry theme. I was not a huge fan, just because of my white chocolate issues, but everyone else said they were good!
Rating: :) (based on other people's reviews)



And I of course made my two bake sale regulars. Berry Patch Brownies (from Let Them Eat Vegan by Dreena Burton) and Soulhaus Cookies (from Great Gluten-Free Vegan Eats by Allyson Kramer).





Bec, who is on the committee of ALQ and was my co-baker for the bake sale we did earlier this year, focused her efforts on making nearly 100 cinnamon rolls!! They are always a big hit. Bec is about to leave us for 6 months to go and study at the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York! I am very envious, and can't wait to see what she is bringing to bake sales once she gets back!



And of course we had several other great bakers! Here's what they brought.

Peanut Butter Oreo Brownies and Carrot & Walnut Cake.



Oreo and Strawberry Glazed Doughnuts.



Brownies.



Chocolate Cupcakes, Banana Bread, Banana & Strawberry Muffins.



Gluten-Free Fluffernutters. These are PB cookies with aquafaba marshmallow fluff in the middle! It was my first time eating aquafaba anything. I am behind the times. I still haven't made anything with it yet. It was good!



Oreo and Strawberry Frosted Vanilla Cupcakes.



Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Icing and Caramel Drizzle.



Gingerbread Cupcakes.



Mini custard tarts. We popped several of these straight in our mouths to sustain us.



Savoury Faux Lox Filos. These were filled with a carrot-based salmon and creamy bechamel sauce. I bought a couple to heat up and have for lunch afterwards. YUM! I love good savoury options.



The Gluten-Free Table.



The Gluten-Full Table.



All the tables, full of food!



We raised over $1500, which will go towards ALQ's campaigns (including Greyhound Racing, Ditch Dairy, and Rethink Rodeos). So grateful to everyone who baked and everyone who came!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Sunday was also Sahara's 15th birthday, as I mentioned in my last post. I made broccoli for dinner so she could have a little bit. She is mad for broccoli, but can't have it much because she has IBD. But she got a few pieces for her birthday. Of course, the pieces I put in her bowl were not as interesting to her as the pieces that were on my plate. This is her 'GIVE ME YOUR BROCCOLI' face.