AusNZVeganMoFo: Vegan cupcakes take over the baby shower

My cousin had her baby shower today, and by some miracle I was not on call this weekend. Hurrah! I offered to do some vegan baking to bring along. There are few things as handy, cute and impressive to take along to a party than cupcakes. So I opened up my copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World when I got home from work on Saturday afternoon and set to work in the kitchen!



These are Chocolate Orange Cupcakes, a variation on the Basic Chocolate Cupcake. These are so amazingly AWESOME! In the batter I used the option of adding one and a half teaspoons of orange essence and I also substituted 1/8 cup of sugar with Cointreau. The batter is so great you could practically drink it! It is topped with Orange Buttercream and decorated with chopped orange zest and a chocolate chip. I think they looked adorable. They are fantastic, the cupcake itself is so light and moist and the whole ensemble is just delicious.



Chai Latte Cupcakes were the second cupcake on the menu. I had made these once before, but this time I decided to try and stencil a design on it. The topping mixture (icing sugar, cocoa and cinnamon) make far more than you need, so I had some saved from my first time of making it (and some saved for more batches later). First I dusted on a layer or two of plain icing sugar, then the stencil. The heart stencil looks cute, but next time I would make the heart larger andmore defined - some of them look like triangles! Sadly, by the time the cupcakes were transported and hung around waiting for the sweets to be served the the sugar had kind of melted into the cupcakes like a glaze. You could still see the heart, but not as cute as when I first did them. If you can, try and wait until the last minute before serving before putting on the stencil!


Here they are all ready to be served on my cute little tiered server. They were well received, and people could not believe they were made with no animal ingredients! It is always good to show some people exactly what vegan cooking is all about!


For some extra fun, I made Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles from Isa and Terry's upcoming book Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. They are delicious, with a fantastic chilli kick! Very delicious.

Cute Cat Photo of the Post


Meet Nora, also known as 'bug' because of her curious little bug-eyed appearance! You can't see it quite as clearly with the angle she has her face (typical kitty, looked everywhere but the camera!), but it is quite an adorable little appearance. Nora is one of a litter of six kittens we have at the clinic, we shall soon be looking for homes for them!

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!

Green Flea Markets at West End

Today I finally made it to the Green Flea markets at West End. I had been wanting to go for ages, but my abilities to get to a market early on Saturday morning are pretty much always hampered by work. But this week I am on holidays - so hurrah!

The markets are at Davies Park on the corner of Montague Road and Jane Street in West End. Drive all the way to the end of Vulture Street and turn right, and it is just up on the left. There is free street parking around, though be prepared to take a little bit of a stroll as there are lots of people wanting to park.

The markets were wonderful! Produce stalls were mixed in with other market stalls through a lovely, windy park. With trees! Very nice and open air, but no under cover so keep this in mind if it is raining. The pathways between stalls are also quite narrow, so be prepared for a bit of hustle and bustle.

There are several very large produce stalls, along with smaller ones. There is were two special mushroom stalls, a stall that specialised in heirloom tomatoes (see below), a few organic stalls, jam stalls and then some. All of this was mixed in with clothes, bric a brac, massage, fabrics and various other stalls. Plus the most awesome portable barber ever seen. There was also a variety of fast food stalls.

Sol Breads is an organic sourdough bakery that has a lot of vegan breads. It also had a stall at the markets - hurrah! This is a yummy loaf of Pumpkin And Pepita Bread I bought. I am going to take it down the coast with me on Monday to make lots of yummy sandwiches.



And what market trip is complete without yummy fruit and vegetables? Pictured below is my haul for today, though I am very cranky I forgot to get mushrooms despite the presence of TWO mushroom stalls! Anyway, moving on. To the left of this photo is a lare variety of heirloom tomatoes. There is a great stall there that has boxes of all these different and amazing tomatoes, and you can just mix and match for $10/kg. I am not sure of all the names of them, but I am looking forward to exciting salads and I shall let you know how they measure up.



And finally, the most exciting find of all - VEGAN CUPCAKES! Hurrah! Take that other non-vegan cupcake stall. Like, whatever. These cupcakes are cruelty free and the money made goes to charity. I forgot to ask what the charity of the week was today, I was so excited about the cupcakes. The cupcakes are $3 each, and they also had mini cupcakes for $1. They are packed up in brown paper bags, so that is why the icing is a big smooshed. Next time I will take my own containers to put them in and preserve all the beauty! Below, starting from the left and moving clockwise: Chocolate Peanut Butter, Lemon and Cookies and Cream. Thus far I have eaten the lemon - yummy! And licked up some of the other frostings from the paper bags - also yummy!



One vegan experience that I saw, but did not partake in, was the YKillAMooCow food stall, selers of the famous vegan dagwood dog, as well as pies and sausage rolls and other such things. Dagwood Dogs didn't go on sale until 10am, and I was there at 8am. I would have tried one, even though I was never a fan of the dogwood dog, just in the name of research. But I wasn't going to wait. The early hour of the day and the increasing heat of the day also just meant I couldn't actually face the prospect of a meat pie or anything like that, even to take home. Sorry vegan troopers, next time!

All in all, a great morning spent. And I will try and go back there again, on the few times I can. Damn working! Interferes with the shopping and the eating! Tee hee. ;)