Seitan Said Dance

Bake Sale Total

2009-07-14T15:43:00.000-04:00

The last of our donations have come straggling in and I'm pleased to report Brooklyn raised $1,180 for Farm Sanctuary and Sea Shepherd through the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale. Hugs for everyone!

Here are screen caps of the donation confirmation pages so everyone can rest easy knowing I didn't use the money to fund my upcoming piercing project or next week's trip to San Diego.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the bake sale and supported us in all sorts of awesome ways. You're the best!

Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale Wrap Up

2009-07-02T16:20:00.000-04:00

We held our second Brooklyn bake sale on Sunday and a wonderful time was had by all. We ate, drank, made merry, sang, danced and raised over $1000 for Farm Sanctuary and Sea Shepherd (and we're not done yet, so if you'd like to contribute, keep reading).

Oh yeah. There were also some cakes and things.

Photo by Ronit Tal

That's me being completely overwhelmed by the selection. We had:

Berry Muffins
Zucchini Muffins
Mini Coffee Cakes
Tomato Rosemary Scones
Banana Bread
Aloha Bread
Raspberry Chocolate Chip Blondies
Brownies
Peach Pocket Pies
Chocolate Raspberry Bundt Cake
Chocolate Orange Agave Sweetened Cupcakes
Cappuccino Cupcakes
Margarita Cupcakes
Apricot Almond Cupcakes
Blackberry Topped Low Fat Cupcakes
Pineapple Right Side Upcakes
Vanilla Gluten Free Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
Sugar Cookies
Butterscotch Oatmeal Cookies
Chocolate Chip Trifecta Cookies
Chocolate Chocolate Mint Chunk Cookies
White Chocolate Chip Cashew Butter Cookies
Chocolate Chip Cookies

All vegan. All homemade. Damn, we're good.

As we did last time, we got most of our recipes from Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero's books, but we also broke out Yellow Rose Recipes and Papa Tofu. Also Panda With Cookie and sarchan from The PPK got creative with their own awesome recipes.

We had a great turnout. Loads of friends and family came by. If there's anything better than raising money for a great cause, it's raising money for a great cause while spending time with awesome people. We did that.

On to the pictures!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Margarita and Apricot Almond Cupcakes

Chocolate Orange and Cappuccino Cupcakes

White Chocolate Chip Cashew Butter and Chocolate Chocolate Mint Chunk Cookies

Brownies and Blondies

Butterscotch Oatmeal Cookies

Sugar Cookies

Raspberry Chocolate Bundt Cake

There are even more food pictures in my Flickr set.

Photo by David Barrett Graver

Photo by Ronit Tal

Photo by MY MOM

Photo by David Barrett Graver

Photo by Sharlene Mousfar

We weren't just selling baked goods, either. S. Fulton came by and was kind enough to donate several copies of both volumes of Cookin' With My Crawdaddy to sell as part of our fundraiser. We still have one copy of Part II left! If you'd like to buy it, comment here or email me and we'll work something out.

We also had a bunch of Adrienne Dee-Olsen's handmade thematic earrings for sale. She crafted them out of fimo clay, Japanese toys and other things. We still have a few pairs of these available too, so if you'd like to buy some (with the proceeds going to the charities, of course), again, please leave a comment or email me.

Seal cubs!

Cookies!

Roll Cakes!

Pie!

We even caught the creator in the act:

Photos by Ronit Tal

To see more of Adrienne's bake sale jewelry CLICK!

It was a pretty long day. Some of us passed the time with a dance party...

Photo by Sharlene Mousfar

Photo by MY MOM

Photo by Sharlene Mousfar

While others chased people into the street with cupcakes and shoved them in their faces until they agreed to buy something.

Photos by Sharlene Mousfar

I'm still not sure which was the better business tactic, but either way, people laughed!

Many thanks to:
Compassion For Animals for organizing the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale
Open Source Gallery
The people of the PPK, who are totally awesome
Everyone who baked, sewed, sculpted, shopped, drove, drew, printed, promoted, re-Tweeted, listened, laughed, chalked, location scouted, and contributed to the success of this bake sale in myriad ways I'm forgetting (for which I apologize). Without that, there would have been no bake sale, which would have sucked.

I think that's it. I promise to shut up about the bake sale now...until we get our final fundraising total.

Vegan Bake Sale Day 1

2009-06-24T15:25:00.001-04:00

We held our first bake sale on Sunday and things went surprisingly smoothly. We started a bit late, the weather sucked, chocolatey things got a bit melty due to the humidity and we had a small coffee accident, but other than that, smooth as silken tofu.

Before I talk about the past, a quick reminder about the future:

Our next bake sale is going to be even bigger and better*, and it's this Sunday, June 28, starting around 11 AM**.

Open Source Gallery
Park Slope, Brooklyn
251 17th Street, right off of 5th Avenue, one block east of the Prospect Avenue M/R station and convenient from the B63 bus

In addition to Panda With Cookie's apron and the signed Vegan Brunch cookbooks we're raffling off, we'll also have some thematic handmade accessories by Adrienne Dee-Olsen on hand.

The profits are still going to Farm Sanctuary and Sea Shepherd.

Now back to the fun stuff. Here's what we had up for sale:

Cranberry orange muffins
Lemon poppy seed muffins
Toasted coconut mango muffins
Apple rosemary scones
Banana bread
Vanilla agave sweetened cupcakes
Green tea cupcakes
Lemon cupcakes
Chocolate gluten free cupcakes
Low fat vanilla cupcakes
Chocolate mint cupcakes
Brownies
Raspberry chocolate chip blondies
Almond cookies
Gingerbread cookies
Chocolate chip cookies
Chewy peanut butter-banana-Peanut Chew (TM)-chunk oatmeal cookies
Mocha chip cookies
Mint chocolate cupcakes
Butterscotch chip cupcakes
Chocolate doughnut holes
Apricot almond doughnut holes

Most of those were made from the recipes in Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero's wonderful books because while most of my friends and I love to bake and are good at it, we're not ready for our own recipes, yet. The exceptions would be Kittee's banana bread recipe, the big, chunky cookies made by sarchan from The PPK, and the doughnut holes. Kind of. They were made out of globs of cakes that didn't pan out (the cake recipes were from VCTOTW).

We sold out of almost everything we made and raised about $500. What we didn't sell Sunday, our coworkers bought Monday. Business came from many sources. Vegans who read about the bake sale online came to the area specifically for it, while people who live in the area stopped by to see what was up and got some treats. My favorite part of the day was probably when a parent told his young son he could pick out whatever he wanted and the kid asked for one dollar to buy a Sea Shepherd button. That boy is going places. Also awesome: a mother who bought a whole load of stuff and asked about cooking tips and recipes so she could cook for her newly-vegetarian daughter.

But you probably don't care about that, you want to see the pretty, right? Let's go.

Agave sweetened cupcakes:

Gingerbread cookies:

A raffle prize by Panda With Cookie:

Orange cranberry muffins:

Chocolate chip cookies:

The Shroud of Vegan (the hand of the divine guided us to leave part of the coffee maker out when making our second pot of the day. See the face?):

Green tea and chocolate gluten free cupcakes:

Mocha chip cookies:

Apple rosemary scones:

Low fat cupcakes:

More pictures are over at Flickr.

And that's a wrap. Hope to see you Sunday! Remember: the gallery is indoors, so if it's raining, we'll keep you dry!

*We'll be making some of the things we had last week, like the blondies and brownies, but also heaps of new things like cappuccino cupcakes and hand-held pies.

*Last week, we were around until at least 8 PM, so don't skip the sale if you can only come late. If you want to make sure we're there before coming out, you can always email or Twitter at me, or comment here. I'll be checking it all throughout the day.

I Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Bake Sale Shilling

2009-06-19T03:11:00.001-04:00

To bring you cake.

We're just days away from a bake sale, so I decided it would be a good idea to make a birthday cake*. I clearly have no desire to ever leave my kitchen.

I'm lucky to have friends who sometimes challenge me to make new things. Last year, my friend wanted a crepe cake and it didn't go so well. Inspired by last month's fiasco, she asked about a cannoli cake this year. I had no idea what this was, but that's what the Internet's for, right?

Fun fact: Everyone on the Internet has a different idea of what a cannoli cake is and it doesn't even usually have cannoli in/on it.

I pieced together assorted bits of Internet and concluded that cannoli cake is a layer cake made of sponge cake soaked in rum syrup and cannoli filling, topped with a buttercream/heavy cream sort of frosting and here's what I came up with:

This is a great make-ahead recipe. I made the cake over the course of three days, taking less than an hour of active time each day.

Monday, I made my Super Secret Cannoli Filling, which isn't so much a secret as an offhand mess. It's basically squished up firm tofu, lemon juice, vanilla extract, granulated and confectioners sugar, tofu cream cheese and mini chocolate chips. It needs to drain at least over night.

I made the sponge cake Tuesday, using VeganYumYum's recipe. When making a cake from a cupcake recipe, I usually double it, but this one says it makes fifteen, so I just 1.5ed it, which was perfect. As you can see, I would have had a major mess on my hands had I used any more batter.

Wednesday started with the rum syrup. That recipe was so strong sniffing the steam coming off the pot made my eyes water. I upped the sugar and reheated it in an attempt to boil off some of the alcohol. It still seemed very strong to me (I don't really drink much), so I used a minimal amount and now have a container of orangey sweetened rum in my fridge. Boy, I sure do hope someone can figure out something to do with it.

Next came assembly. Here's the first rum-soaked cake, topped with cannoli filling:

I had another collapsed cake problem last month and vowed not to let that happen again. My weapon of choice in the war against cake collapse? Skewers!

I just kept shifting them around as I frosted the cake with a mashup of the buttercream and cream cheese frostings from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World., then threw some extra chocolate chips over the cake right before serving to cover the holes.

I know I said I wouldn't plug our upcoming bake sale in this post, but this is what I did at work. I think I may have convinced some people it would be in their best interest to attend. I also attached a flier to the lid of the cake carrier, to give people on the subway something to think about.

Now I'm off for a a few hours of sleep before I get cracking on this bake sale. Hope to see you there!

* Do YOU need a birthday cake? Father's Day cake? Bar Mitzvah? Graduation? Communion? New baby? Old baby? Let us know in advance and we'll have one ready for you on Bake Sale Day. I promise to try not to drop it.

Bake Sale Twittering!

2009-06-18T12:03:00.000-04:00

Just so you know, I'm on Twitter.

Normally, I'd never suggest following me, since I'm boring. But if you plan on coming to the bake sale, it might be a good idea to check out my feed for things like "OHMYGOD WE'RE STUCK IN TRAFFIC! WE'RE NEVER GOING TO GET THERE!" or "Holy crap! We're already out of gluten free cupcakes!" or "Screw this, I'm going home".

Contrariwise, if you already do follow me on Twitter and don't want to read days of "Dammit! I burned my hand again!" and "I JUST DROPPED THREE DOZEN CUPCAKES IN THE MIDDLE OF FIFTH AVENUE!!" you may want to unfollow or silence me for a while.

Either way, I hope to see you there!

Wrap Up!

2009-06-16T09:48:00.001-04:00

With our first bake sale only FIVE DAYS AWAY, it's time for me to get a little repetitive and sum stuff up for the folks just tuning in:

Compassion for Animals' Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale!

June 21 and 28, 11 AM until we sell out and/or can't take it anymore
Open Source Gallery
Park Slope, Brooklyn
251 17th Street, right off of 5th Avenue, one block east of the Prospect Avenue M/R station and convenient from the B63 bus

Profits to Farm Sanctuary and Sea Shepherd.

Music! Dancing (kinda)! Art! Drinks! Raffles! Much, much more!*

Raffle prizes:
Signed copies of Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz
A handmade contribution from Panda With Cookie**

In case you're still not convinced you need to attend this bake sale, there are pictures of some of the items we'll have on offer after the jump.

Chocolate chip cookies:

Lemon poppy seed muffins:

Raspberry chocolate chip blondie bars and brownies:

Toasted coconut mango muffin:

Banana bread:

There will also be cupcakes, scones and assorted other awesomeness.

Hope to see you there!

*OK, maybe not SO much more.

**Panda With Cookie will also be doing a craft fair in the area on the 21st, so it might be in your best interest to hop from one to the other. More info here).

PS: The first day of this bake sale falls on Father's Day. Need a cake? Pre-order one from us!

Cupcakes and Culture

2009-06-12T13:19:00.000-04:00

Woo! The Worldwide Vegan Bake sale is fast approaching! It's exciting!

As previously mentioned, our sale will be held at the Open Source Gallery, in Park Slope, Brooklyn. We're lucky enough to be sharing the space with "3 Prisoners", an installation by Hubert Dobler, so expect the unexpected. If the space doesn't look like the ideal place to be holding a bake sale, come on in anyway. Don't be shy! We'll be in there. Honest. The piece has nothing to do with our bake sale, but all are welcome to check it out.

To read more about the installation, check out the gallery's site. Please note that pictures on the site are just examples of the artist's work and may not be indicative of this specific installation.

Updates!

2009-06-02T10:59:00.000-04:00

Bake sale related news!

1. Check out our snazzy fliers:

Created by the lovely and talented Adrienne Dee-Olsen.

2. Check out our snazzy prizes!

Yes, two lucky patrons (one each day) will win signed copies of Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Vegan Brunch! There will probably be some sort of raffle. Don't worry, we won't make you hang around all day to win (though you're welcome to!).

We'll also have some other small free things (tea, coffee, hugs, etc.), but none of them will compare with the awesomeness that is Vegan Brunch. You NEED this book. And you need it free. Signed. And now that Isa lives in Portland, New Yorkers can't just stalk her for signatures anymore, so this bake sale is probably your best bet.

The bake sale will be June 21 and 28 at the Open Source Gallery: 251 17th Street, right off of 5th Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn, just one block east of the Prospect Avenue M/R station and convenient from the B63 bus.

Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale

2009-05-31T21:18:00.002-04:00

The Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale is coming to Brooklyn!

That's right, we're participating in Compassion for Animals' bake sale on June 21 AND 28, with the profits going to Farm Sanctuary and Sea Shepherd.

We'll be hanging out at the Open Source Gallery, in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with loads of vegan treats including some gluten free, low fat, low sugar, kosher, soy and nut-free options.

We'll have some free samples on hand for those who doubt the power of vegan baking, as well as some seating, music and drinks available, so come for the cookies but stay for the good times.

The Open Source Gallery is located at 251 17th Street, right off of 5th Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn, just one block east of the Prospect Avenue M/R station and convenient from the B63 bus.

More details will be posted soon, so watch this space!

PS: We hope to be up and running around 11 AM and will be around until we've sold everything!

Month of 1000 Birthdays

2009-05-26T11:37:00.000-04:00

Well, just five, really. But they were all mine! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Ahem.

Sorry.

Aaaaanyway...Sunday, May 10, was my birthday, but I've been fortunate enough to have it acknowledged five times this month. All with awesome edibles.

The first time was my office birthday party on the seventh. Since I like baking and finding vegan cake in midtown Manhattan is kind of a pain in the ass, I make my own birthday cake every year and my boss reimburses me $20 for it. This year, I made a giant chocolate mint cupcake (please note the phone in the background for scale):

I tripled the Chocolate Mint Cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and covered it with mint icing, Quick Melty Ganache and chocolate mint lentils. It was dangerously good. The mint makes the cake seem lighter than regular chocolate cake, and this cake pan kind of keeps you from going overboard with the icing, so if you're not careful, you can just keep eating this cake until suddenly your platter is empty and you've gained twenty pounds. Twenty tasty, tasty pounds. If you haven't tried this recipe yet (and like mint), please do. But proceed with caution.

The absolute best part of making the chocolate mint cake is...well...did you ever buy the mint Girl Scout cookies? Do you remember the aroma that would waft out and hit you in the face when you opened the box? Well, when you're making this cake, your ENTIRE KITCHEN SMELLS LIKE MINT GIRL SCOUT COOKIE WAFTINGS! It's an amazing thing. If you have a really tiny apartment, you can probably hotbox yourself in minty goodness. Awesome.

In case you're wondering, I made it using this cake pan, which was a gift from the same awesome people who gave me the boat cake pan. I guess they kind of know me pretty well. If you want to see how the cake assembly works, just browse backward from here.

Then, the Tofu Takedown was on my actual birthday. Obviously, I celebrated with lots of cannoli. Then we moved the party to Curly's Lunch, followed by Lula's Sweet Apothecary, where I got carrot cake ice cream (in a sugar cone!!) which tasted like the creamiest pumpkin pie ever. It was difficult to keep my pants on (especially since I was wearing a dress).

May 16 was mostly a celebration for other people, but I received my share of birthday wishes and brought the Raspberry Chocolate Chip Blondie Bars from Vegan With a Vengeance. They're definitely one of my favorite things and only take about an hour to make, which is pretty awesome. I didn't take any pictures this time, but they looked just like the ones I made for Election Day.

My family and I celebrated my birthday, Mother's Day and my mother's birthday (the 8th) on the 17th because I was busy taking down tofu on the 10th. I tried to make a cake out of the Brooklyn vs. Boston Cream Pie recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, but kind of failed:

Pastry creme is just not what to use when trying to stick layers together. I should have known that from my last pastry creme debacle, but no one ever said I was a fast learner. I spent a good part of my afternoon cleaning ganache and pastry creme off the door of my refrigerator. I will not tell you whether or not I licked the fridge.

Lastly, my friends and I celebrated my birthday on the 24th in Philadelphia. Thanks to an awesome friend who did all sorts of veganny research, we ate at Basic Four Vegetarian Snack Bar and New Harmony Vegetarian Restaurant. At Basic Four, I had the best freaking tofu scramble I've ever eaten that I didn't make myself. Their potatoes are really good too. Most importantly, there was vegan Philly cheesesteak. I don't have words for how good this was, so just eat it with your eyes:

Please note that the picture does not do it justice.

New Harmony was a vegan Chinese buffet of awesomeness. Even the tea, orange slices and pineapple chunks were better than most. I gave faux shrimp another try (the first time I tried it, it tasted like fish - BLECH!) and even liked that.

Another friend brought Mexican Hot Chocolate cupcakes from VCTOTW. They're always wonderful and were a great pick-me-up between finding twenty (yes, TWENTY) geocaches and visiting The Mutter Museum, which is more than slightly awesome.

If you're reading this, good job with the vegan food, Philadelphia! I want to walk in your subway tunnels and eat many of your sandwiches!

Please Note:

2009-05-22T19:43:00.001-04:00

This post may be slightly blithering.

VEGAN BRUNCH IS HERE!!!

AND IT'S GOT MY NAME IN (spelled correctly!)!

AND VINTAGE PYREX!

AND LOTS OF YUMMINESS SO YOU SHOULD GO BUY IT!

I don't make commission off of it, I swear. It's just really fucking good. I have access to most of these recipes online and I'm STILL excited to have it in hand. And I'd sell my little brother for some carmelized onion quiche right now, but I'm only supposed to cook tester recipes for Isa and Terry's upcoming books right now. At least that's what I've been telling myself until this fabulous book showed up. So many pretty pictures!

This is my advice to YOU for free. No charge. Gratis: Get this book and make some quiche, lemon poppy seed muffins, beer battered tofu, and pain au chocolat. You're welcome.

Get up with the get down

2009-05-17T21:11:00.000-04:00

Or the Takedown. Whatever.

Last Sunday, May 10, was the first ever Tofu Takedown! Presented by Matt Timms, of Chili Takedown fame, at the Highline Ballroom, the Tofu Takedown was a chance for people to compete to the death for the honor of the cherished soy product.

Or something.

I entered the competition with vegan cannoli, not so much because I wanted to compete, but because I wanted to participate. I'd never done anything like this before, so I knew winning wasn't an option. However, feeding a couple hundred people cannoli was. Despite the preparation difficulties (which everyone has come to expect when I'm in the kitchen), I'm really glad I did this and would definitely do it again. The next event is a Curry Takedown, which I'm not really feeling, but I've already got some ideas for then next tofu one.

I'm not posting my recipe because I really just mixed and matched aspects of recipes I found online and I don't think a recipe that includes lines like "Add sugar until contents of bowl no longer smells like tofu" is all that helpful. However, I will give you a basic outline of how to make cannoli (I wanted to take pictures of the various steps, but got too lazy. Shocking, yes?):

Make some dough. It usually has egg in it, but I used ground flax in water instead.

Roll the dough out, cut it into circles, wrap the circles around cannoli forms (by the way, anyone need THIRTY-EIGHT CANNOLI TUBES?!? What the hell am I going to do with THIRTY-EIGHT CANNOLI TUBES!?!) and fry it in a pan of 360 degree oil for two or three minutes.

Make your filling. It's usually mostly drained ricotta cheese, but I used really well pressed firm tofu, some lemon juice, granulated and confectioners sugar, vanilla extract, and some mini bittersweet chocolate chips, of course.

Pipe your filling into your shells and viola! Cannoli! Simple, right? It might be a little less simple when you think you need to make 200 of them. It gets even less simple when you show up and the organizer says you actually need 300 of them. It gets even less simple when instead of coming out like this:

about half of your shells come out like this (and I still have no idea why):

That made dealing with runny filling a cinch by comparison. I just drained it overnight in my handy dandy cannoli filling draining apparatus (not pictured: two pieces of pizza used to apply pressure and wedge the bowl tightly in the fridge):

It took four tries on the shells and two tries on the filling to get them right. Thankfully, even when they were wrong, they were tasty. My family is still snacking on fried dough.

Here's another picture of the cannoli:

The event itself was very fun. So many people showed up that I would have run out of cannoli really early on if my friend hadn't been there. She washed off her pocketknife and cut as many as she could in half. We still ran out before everyone got to try them, but two other people ran out first, so that's not so bad.

There were seventeen entrants: four savory dishes and thirteen sweet. Maybe about half were vegan, though one of the dishes (a winner) was called vegan despite including honey. Whatever I tasted was quite nice. I think I would have given the prize to the vegan cheesecake, but mostly savory dishes won. This may or may not be because they were so scarce and people just got tired of looking at desserts.

Since things covered in powdered sugar are pretty, here's another shot of the cannoli. Please ignore the awkward-looking human with the tongs. That's just me.

For more pictures from the Takedown, including my failed attempts and other entries, click here.
For the Village Voice writeup (with pictures) click here
For the Metromix writeup (with pictures) click here.
For the Time Out New York writeup (with pictures) click here.
For a New York Times writeup of NYC cooking competitions that includes a mention of the Takedown click here.
Grub Street didn't say much, but they did mention my cannoli!
Slashfood writeup.

And that's it. Unless you've seen this mentioned someplace else on the Internet that I've missed. If so, please comment with a link!

Hello, I Suck

2009-05-12T10:34:00.000-04:00

At this blog thing, anyway. It's been ages, and I still haven't posted about Passover.

In short: it ruled. I cooked two totally vegan Seders and my family loved them so much they even ate the leftovers days later. Sometimes, Passover feels like a real chore and all everyone wants is a bagel or pizza, but this year, no one seemed to mind missing out on leavened things or meat. Awesome.

Pictured above (clockwise from top): Sauteed Spinach and Tomatoes, Tomato and Roasted Eggplant Stew, Sweet Potato-Pear Tzimmes with Pecans and Raisins, Quinoa Tabouli and Asparagus Spinach Dip on matzo (all from Veganomicon, except the Tabouli from Yellow Rose Recipes).

With variety like that, who needs meat and bread?

I've never really been involved in the whole Passover process before and I learned many things:

1. Always remove the thermometer from the oven before telling it to clean itself.

2. Don't leave plastic spatulas on the stove top (I've melted at least three already).

3. Produce in the suburbs is HUGE.

4. And CHEAP!

That carload of fresh produce cost $75! I usually fill up my knapsack and/or reusable Whole Foods bag with groceries for $50!

5. Happiness can be sold by the bucket.

(Those are sour pickles up in there.)

6. If you fill the kitchen with grocery bags, you will have trouble getting to the other side.

7. It's not THAT difficult to make caramel.

8. The best tasting foods are often the worst looking. Especially via camera phone.

That stuff was so good I made it twice. The second time, I substituted a pound of peaches for one of the pounds of strawberries. So. Good.

PS: Sorry for the even crappier than usual quality of a lot of these photos; they were taken on the fly with my BlackBerry.

PPS: I kind of stowed away on my mother's shopping trip and she didn't want to wait for me to get out my reusable bags, so alas, plastic.

Note to Self

2009-04-01T00:20:00.001-04:00

Long story short: my family has agreed to two totally vegan Seders this Passover* and I'm all but crapping my pants as we get closer to the holiday. I think my mother and I have finally settled on a menu, but all the handwritten notes are driving me totally batshit, so here are our menus:

Night the First:

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup from Vegan With a Vengeance
Quinoa Tabouli from Yellow Rose Recipes
Stuffed Twice-Baked Potatoes from Yellow Rose Recipes**
Tomato and Roasted Eggplant Stew with Chickpeas from Veganomicon (sans chickpeas)
Roasted asparagus with a metric assload of garlic
Matzo Almond Brittle

Night the Second:

Creamy Tomato Soup from Veganomicon
Cinnamon Lime Quinoa with Apricots & Almonds from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan
Herb-Roasted Potatoes from Vegan With a Vengeance
Sweet Potato-Pear Tzimmes with Pecans and Raisins from Veganomicon**
Sauteed Spinach and Tomatoes from Veganomicon
Strawberry Rhubarb Compote with Matzo Streusel Topping

I also wanted to do some straight up vegetable salads, but my mother thinks it's unnecessary. Everyone's getting old and they just can't eat so much so late.***

For the rest of Passover, I'll probably just eat leftovers and matzo with some random spreads. I'm considering:

Tapenade (YRR)
Guacamole (VCON)
Sweet Basil Pesto Tapenade (VCON)
Asparagus Spinach Dip (VCON)

Also, ED&BV has an interesting-looking focaccia recipe and I'm considering subbing matzo for the pizza dough, just for shits and giggles. We shall see what shall be. I'll probably make truffles again too, since they were much loved last year.

Happy holidays, everyone!****

* Passover generally means no bread or grains or things involved in leavenedness. As an added bonus, my family also doesn't eat any legumes or seeds, making the whole vegan thing a nice challenge.

** We had these on Thanksgiving and the family liked them so much a return engagement was requested.

*** Speaking of everyone getting old, my grandmother is moving in with us for a while, so things are going to be pretty damn hectic. Therefore, I'm not promising any pictures when all this is over. However, I'll be sure to return in a relatively timely fashion to at least review the dishes (which will probably just involve me saying "Holy crap! Isa, Terry and Joanna are geniuses!" as usual).

**** Sorry, this wasn't really all that short.

Franzycakes V 2.0

2009-03-18T16:27:00.002-04:00

As I mentioned last March, I have a friend who really likes Franz Ferdinand. Her birthday came around again, and lucky for me, they've come out with another album. Behold! Franzycakes: The Return!

Those are Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes with Quick Melty Ganache from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

Most of the cupcakes simply said TONIGHT: YOUR BIRTHDAY

But that got boring, so I made a few hands, too:

Then I realized I wasn't actually giving her the cupcakes on her birthday. She picked them up from my office almost two weeks later and I didn't want my cupcakes to be living a lie:

The cupcakes themselves are very tasty, but were a little dry. That may have been because I couldn't get my flax seeds as well ground as I should have (I used a wooden mortar and pestle).

The decorating went easier and faster than I expected it to. I would have gone slower if I thought it would help, but it wouldn't have. As I was working on the cupcakes, I thought to myself "Wow, these look like crap. I'm going to look up the pictures of last year's Franz Ferdinand cupcakes and will see absolutely no improvement in my lettering. That fucking sucks." Then I realized "Wait a minute, I don't think I've done any writing since last year's Franz Ferdinand cupcakes. How the hell can I improve if I don't practice?!" and that made me feel a little better. What made me feel even better (and worse) was actually looking at last year's cupcakes. Go click the link in the first line of this post. I'll wait.

Done laughing yet?

Holy crap! Those were fucking TERRIBLE! How the fuck did I take those out of the house?!? CHRIST! My friends should have confiscated my pastry bag then and there. Shit.

So yeah, one quick way to improve your piping skills (and maybe even your self esteem) is to start out making something that looks like TOTAL CRAP because you couldn't get your icing the right texture. I remember those taking fucking hours to decorate, too. What the shit.

This time, the icing was the perfect consistency. I was just a lazy asshole and didn't feel like getting a second pastry bag for the orange icing, so I washed the bag in between colors and refilled it wet, making my orange icing nice and runny. YAY I'M AWESOME!

They don't look anything like professional, but they taste good, all of them were legible and two people (including the birthday girl) were able to recognize what they were supposed to be without being told. For me, that's a creative victory.

(Also: two posts in one week! What the balls?!)

Oh Hi

2009-03-15T21:34:00.001-04:00

Wow, I'm really crap at this blog thing, huh?

Hmmm....what's happened since my last post of any substance? Let's see.

(please excuse the crappy photo. It's taken with my BlackBerry and apparently TwitPic* doesn't let you embed photos without shrinking them. This picture really isn't worth reuploading to Flickr, but we'll make do since it's all I have from the past few months and this post needs something. You can click through to see it in it's larger, overbroiled, glory.)

Vegan Brunch testing ended. Pre-order your copy today! (thus concludes the shameless plug portion of this post)

I successfully completed about a week doing Eat to Live really hardcore. During that week, I made loads of non-photogenic soup, which was not worth posting about.

I spent two months doing my own modification of Eat to Live, which basically meant making more ugly (though tasty) food and not eating any Luna Bars. Success!

I gave up fried foods for the period of time known as Lent (also chewy candy, but that's not relevant to what you see here).

I baked a lot of chocolate chip cookies. They didn't come out anywhere near as pretty as Isa's.

Testing began for Terry Hope Romero's Vegan Latina. WOOHA!

So far, I've made Tropical Pumpkin Soup, which uses Calabaza pumpkin instead of the kind you usually use on Thanksgiving. It's really good and creamy and kind of thymey. Yum.

Locro, or Creamy Potato Soup with Avocado, might be my new boyfriend. My whole family loved this. It's so thick and rich and creamy. The avocado adds a nice touch to your usual potato soup and it's garnished with lime juice and raw red onion which give it a nice kick.

Pastel de Choclo, or Sweet Basil & Corn Pot Pie, is kind of like shepherd's pie gone south o' the border. The filling is made up of vegetables, raisins, tempeh and yuca and the topping is a sort of batter made of corn instead of the usual potato. So. Good. The picture above doesn't really do it justice because I broiled the hell out of the top (I've said it before and I'll say it 74289 times more: I like my shit burnt).

In addition to getting to make all sorts of tasty awesomeness, working on this book is allowing me to try out a bunch of new flavors. In one week, I've already added two new spices to my list (annatto, which I used to flavor an oil that was to be used in the potato soup and many other things, and epazote, sort of like Latiny oregano). So much fun!

I think that's all I've got. Now that I'm testing again and Passover is coming, hopefully you'll see a bit more from me in the coming months.

So how've you been?

*Yes, I'm on Twitter, but I don't bother to link it here because I'm not one of those interesting food-related Twitterers who posts all sorts of useful links and stuff, it's mostly just my friends and I bullshitting.

Music for Animals

2009-01-14T12:00:00.005-05:00

This isn't a food post, but it's for the animals, so I think it's still safe for a veganism-related blog. Yes? Yes.

Taken from BrooklynVegan:

Today, we are especially happy to bring you "People Got A Lotta Nerve," the first single from Neko Case's forthcoming album Middle Cyclone (out March 3), because for every blog that reposts the song and/or iLike user who adds it to their profile, Neko Case and ANTI- will make a cash donation to Best Friends Animal Society.

The promotion will run from January 13 to February 3, 2009. Five dollars will be donated for every blog post and one dollar for every user of iLike that adds the song to his/her profile.

Everyone and their grandmama has a blog these days, so repost this and let the good people over at newmedia @ epitaph . com know you did, and the animals get $5. I admit I haven't done any research on Best Friends Animal Society, but this is kind of a no-brainer to me; after all, Neko Case kind of rules anyway.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD! WOOHA!

GOAL!

2009-01-12T10:36:00.012-05:00

[Insert mental image of me (or the dork of your choice) throwing my arms up like a referee.]

I have my first goal for 2009. This is pretty funny, since I haven't completed either of my goals for 2008 yet, but please bear with me.

The goal: To acquire and cook with a spice starting with every letter of the alphabet.

My spice cabinet has gotten pretty full over the past year, but some letters are still unrepresented and I'd like to rectify that in 2009. With your help.

After the jump, I've typed....wait for it...the alphabet. The bold letters are the ones I don't have spices for. What I ask of you, dear readers (yes, both of you), are your favorite spices beginning with those letters. And, if you've got them, recipes using those spices. Recipes don't need to be vegan for me to use them as a starting point, so please, give me everything you've got.

Actually, why not go ahead and tell me about your favorite spices, even if their letters are already taken? I'm going to be pretty flexible with my alphabetizing anyway (e.g.: Jamaican allspice counts as J, white pepper counts as W and rubbed sage as R because I already have A, P and S taken care of), so if you have something more exciting than thyme for T, let me know about it, please.

As I get my cook on for the next twelve months, I'll update this post with which spice I've used for each letter, and if I feel really motivated, maybe a link to the recipe I used it in.

Thank you and may your coming year kick copious amounts of ass.

Spice List

Anatto (03/11, Creamy Potato Soup with Avocado (Locro) - Vegan Latina tester!)
Basil (shocking, yes? 03/15 Sweet Basil & Corn Pot Pie AKA Pastel de Choclo - Vegan Latina tester!)
Coriander, cumin (01/11, Spicy Red Lentil Soup)
Dill (01/11, Springtime Soup I know it's winter. So sue me!)
Epazote (03/15 Sweet Basil & Corn Pot Pie AKA Pastel de Choclo - Vegan Latina tester! Woohoo! My first new letter!)
F
Ginger (Red Lentil-Cauliflower Curry)
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
Tumeric (01/11, Spicy Red Lentil Soup)
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

Im a Bad, Bad Girl

2008-12-29T11:23:00.000-05:00

Or maybe just a terrible blogger. Christmas is over (happy holidays, everyone) and I haven't even discussed Thanksgiving yet. I suck. I also suck for not getting a shot of my whole Thanksgiving table. Lacking that, I'll open this post with our centerpiece:

That there is the Edible Mayflower (higher res on Flickr).

You may ask yourself ~~"Where is that large automobile?"~~ "Why the crap would anyone make an edible Mayflower?!" I don't have a good answer to that question. But I do have a story.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (i.e. about a year ago, on the Internet), my friend found the Meat Ship (insert rather obvious Gross Out Warning here). I was struck by both its grossness and it's awesomeness (hello there, edible BOAT) and decided I had to make a vegan one. My friends were kind enough to gift me a pirate ship cake pan to aid me in my quest, and the rest is history (or dinner).

Once I decided to make the ship itself from cornbread, I took to the Internet to find out what people enjoyed most with the stuff. After polling the constituents, I ended up with sails made from Veganomicon style sauteed collard greens, Pilgrims made from mini Spicy Pinto Sausages wearing sauteed mushroom hats, sailing the seven seas of Yellow Rose Recipes Better Than Basic Chili. Perhaps not the most traditional of Thanksgiving foods, but damn tasty just the same.

Here's my first plate of the night. Yes, we went classy and ate Thanksgiving dinner on disposable plates. Don't judge me!

Clockwise from that poppy-seed covered ball of awesome, we have:

Poppyseed Pull-Apart Rolls (Vegan Brunch). Harvest Vegetable Medley (Vegetarian Times). Sweet Potato Pear Tzimmes with Pecans and Raisins (Veganomicon). Stuffed Twice Baked Potatoes (Yellow Rose Recipes). Thanksgiving style polenta seitan (Parsnip Parsimony, The I-40 Kitchen). Gravy (my friend Sarah). Grilled Asparagus (Veganomicon).

I had another plate after that with chili, collards, stuffing, cranberry crumble and I don't even know what else. My foodbaby was enormous.

I made the Chestnut Apple Stuffing from last fall's Vegetarian Times for Thanksgiving dinner, substituting Isa's Spicy Pinto Sausages from the upcoming Vegan Brunch for the store bought ones. Everyone loved it. My mother has some sort of sausage aversion and asked me not to put sausage in the stuffing, so I only put in two and she really liked it. Yet again, vegan food has proven her wrong!

That was my first time eating chestnuts. I don't think I'm a fan. I won't pick them out of anything, but I won't go hunting down chestnut-based recipes either.

I enjoyed the Harvest Vegetable Medley from the same magazine a lot more. Everyone loved it, even my vegetable-phobic grandmother. This was surprising because it's really just plain, old roasted vegetables. Then again, it's not so suprprising because it has almost thirty cloves of garlic in it and who doesn't love metric assloads of garlic? Please note that if you make the recipe as written, you will be able to feed at least a dozen people for two days. I suggest halving it unless you're having a platoon over for dinner and/or really love leftovers.

Thanks to Parsnip Parsimony, I now know about the joy that is polenta seitan. This is not something that would have occurred to me to make, so I'm really glad she thought of it. It's got great bite and I can easily eat a whole batch of it at once if I don't stop myself. Sadly, it's not very photogenic.

Don't let that put you off, though. It's still awesome.

Let the record show I don't like sweet potato. And I don't like tzimmes. I like my vegetables savory, my fruit sweet and never the twains shall meet. My family, however, loves both, so I made them the Sweet Potato Pear Tzimmes with Pecans & Raisins from Veganomicon. Since I made it, I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt and take a taste and actually liked it. Holy crap. That's the sort of word eating I can get behind. I think the pecans may have been what converted me. I love me some pecans.

The Stuffed Twice Baked Potatoes from Yellow Rose Recipes are pretty amazing. How amazing? Amazing enough to get my little brother to eat mushrooms. That's borderline miraculous. These potatoes are stuffed with broccoli and mushrooms and win. Mine don't look so great because they're a bit over baked, but that's how we like them.

Here's a shot of the full pan of Poppyseed Pull-Apart Rolls from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's upcoming Vegan Brunch. They're good for brunch or any damn time. I obviously thought they'd make good dinner rolls and I was right. However, they are crazy with the poppy seeds. Be prepared to make a mess with these babies.

No SSD family dinner is complete without grilled asparagus. Is that weird?

For dessert, we have leftover birthday cake, my friend Sarah's Tofu Pumpkin Pie and Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake with Cinnamon Icing from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Not the prettiest desserts ever (I ran out of decorating time), but they more than made up for it in tastiness. Especially the cake. I can't get enough of it and neither can anyone I've ever made it for.

And that's a wrap. Happy holidays, everyone! Stay safe. See you back here in 2009.

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

2008-12-01T16:53:00.000-05:00

My grandmother turned 82 on Wednesday. Here's her birthday cake:

Unfortunately, with all the food I made in the last few days, that's the only picture I was able to take outside. The rest were taken at the dinner table (and some things weren't photographed at all), so take a good look at that picture. The rest are going to be crap.

See?

The cake is just the Apricot Glazed Almond Cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World made into a cake, decorated with marzipan letters and dried appricots dipped in chocolate and almonds. It is tasty and moist and not too sweet, and the preserves inside make your mouth say "Why hello there!" and it's pretty damn near perfect. My whole family loved it, especially my grandmother, who normally takes two bites of cake and says she's had enough but actually ate a whole piece of this thing (and took some home with her; she normally hates leftovers. This is historic).

Now that we have the important stuff out of the way, it's story time. Because if I've made a cake, you can be pretty sure there's a story involved. Probably one involving some kind of destruction.

Once upon a time (AKA last Wednesday, AKA Grandma's birthday, AKA day before Thanksgiving), I took the day off to cook. As an added bonus, in order to keep myself (and my friends) entertained (and distracted), I set up a webcam in my kitchen and broadcast my wacky shenanigans live to the whole Internet.

This cake was the very first thing I made, bright and early Wednesday morning. Everything went fine until it was time to decorate. I toasted and chopped my almonds, melted my chocolate, dipped my apricots and everything was fine. Then I popped the top of my can of marzipan to discover it was...Chocolate Schmear. What the crap is Chocolate Schmear? I didn't know, didn't want to know and just wanted it the fuck out of my kitchen. There was much swearing and stomping around, until I remembered I keep an emergency tube of marzipan on hand (when the world comes to an end, I'll be ready to bake. Will you?), grabbed it and made with the decorating. The marzipan letters were great in theory. In practice...not so much. I couldn't get the marzipan out of the damn cookie cutters without poking it with something, which is why all the letters are nicked and strange.

But let's be honest. That's hardly up to my usual standard of cake tragedy. Something else had to go wrong, right? Much to the amusement of my friends quietly watching from their offices, it did.

When the cake was done, I got out my Official Food Photography Table and showed it to whoever was still watching, before taking it outside to take pictures. Somehow, the table slipped out of my hands and INTO THE CAKE. Suddenly, my beautiful cake said "HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRAND*CRATER*"! After the obligatory freakout, I picked the crushed letters out of the cake, moved the rest of them over, made a new "MA", picked one of the apricots off the side of the cake, used it to cover the crater, then redistributed the apricots so it wouldn't be so obvious one was missing. Viola!

In retrospect, I'm pretty pissed at myself for not taking a picture of the cake with the visible crater. I need to get better at documenting my failures.

I usually share the story of how my cakes go wrong while we're eating them, but I didn't this time. Now the whole Internet knows what happened to the cake, but my family is none the wiser. Let's try to keep this between the 7382193719037812738 of us, OK?

And we'll all live happily ever after, the end.

PS: Chocolate Schmear tastes like ass.

Menu Planning

2008-11-25T10:50:00.000-05:00

It's the time of the season for cooking.

Thanksgiving is upon us and we're doing it at our house this year. And I'm in charge of the cooking. The family is still undecided about whether or not my mother will make some turkey parts for the two people who will actually eat it, but there definitely won't be a whole bird on the table and that counts for something. Also, my whole family goes vegan for the day after Thanksgiving, so I'm cooking for that too. And the day before Thanksgiving is my grandmother's birthday, so I'm also making her cake.

I've decided to post my planned menus for the next few days, in order to keep myself from giving up on anything. And so if I completely destroy any of the recipes, I won't be able to deny it.

Wednesday
Apricot Glazed Almond Cake based on a recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World

Thanksgiving Dinner
Note: I was told we don't need soup, salad, gravy or rolls, so they're not missing because I'm lazy.
Grilled Asparagus
Harvest Vegetable Medley from last fall's Vegetarian Times
Chestnut Apple Stuffing from last fall's Vegetarian Times
Stuffed Twice Baked Potatoes from Yellow Rose Recipes
Poppyseed Pull-Apart Rolls from Isa's upcoming book, Vegan Brunch
Polenta Seitan from a recipe that will hopefully be posted on Parsnip Parsimony soon, with seasoning suggestions from The I-40 Kitchen
Sweet Potato Pear Tzimmes with Pecans & Raisins from Veganomicon
My friend Sarah's gravy
My mother's Cranapple Crumble, which I made into mini pies for last winter's challenge
My friend Sarah's pumpkin pie
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake with Cinnamon Icing based on a recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World
And something I'm pretty certain I'm going to screw up, so I won't talk about it yet.

Friday Brunch
Pesto Scrambled Tofu with Grape Tomatoes
Paprika Rosemary Potatoes
Raised Waffles with Baked Cinnamon Apples all from Isa's upcoming book, Vegan Brunch

Friday Dinner
Caesar Salad with Roasted Garlic Croutons
Leek and Bean Cassoulet with Biscuits both from Veganomicon
Leftovers and fresh fruit for dessert

And if I have nothing else to do, I think I'm going to attempt home made English Muffins on Sunday. One more thing from Isa's amazing book of amazingness (AKA Vegan Brunch).

Happy holidays!

Ummm...Hi

2008-11-17T13:46:00.000-05:00

It's been a while. My only excuse is that I'm lazy. That, and most of what I've made over the past couple of months hasn't been all that photogenic. How can one possibly read a post without pictures in it, right? Over the weekend, I was actually rebuked by a friend for slacking off on this whole blog thing, so here I am.

So what's been cooking lately? Good question. I barely remember.

I've tested some more recipes for Isa Chandra Moskowitz's upcoming book, Vegan Brunch, and they pretty much rule. Hopped on and off the raw bandwagon a few times (currently dangling off the side). Baked some brownies. And some blondies. And some brandy fruit cake stuff. And some cookies. In short: lots of baking happened.

That there is a Lemon Poppyseed muffin from the aforementioned brunch book. I don't usually like lemon baked goods, but these muffins are great. They're both sweet and lemony and the crumb is perfect and I love them. While this may not be saying much, these are probably the best muffins I've ever made. My mother went so far as to say they're the best things I've ever made. Seriously good stuff.

I baked for Election Day. I decided to be non-partisan and just go with a patriotic red, white and blue...ish. Red and white came from the Raspberry Chocolate Chip Blondie Bars from Vegan With a Vengeance and the blue came from the Veganomicon Fudgy Wudgy Blueberry Brownies. Yes. I know. They're brown, not blue, but they have "blue" in the name and they're tasty and one of the many things we've all learned from this election is that color does not limit what one can do or be.

Also, I think I've said this before, but I love those blondies SO. DAMN. MUCH. I've made them with different berries and they're always great. It pains me to share them. Really.

(OK, not really. The fun part of baking is the sharing.)

Close up shots of the brownies just looked like a load of brown (not so appetizing), so here are the blondies in all their chocolate raspberry glory.:

And then there's this: Sticky Spiked Double-Apple Cake with a Brown Sugar-Brandy Sauce. It's kind of ridiculous.

Baked in honor of my friend passing the bar (actually, Little Miss Genius Pants has now passed not one but two bars).

It was really easy to veganize. I used one tablespoon ground flax seeds dissolved in three tablespoons water and 1/4 cup applesauce to replace the eggs and MimicCreme for the heavy cream in the sauce. The recipe made me kind of nervous. When it said "Add the eggs and beat on medium speed until thickened and pale" I got jumpy. What if flax and apple sauce won't make it thicken and pale? What if I end up with a thin, dark mess of grossness? No worries, though, it totally worked. The cake was really interesting to make because it was more like a pan full of batter covered fruit and nuts than a batter with some fruit in it. It was cool to see how it all expanded as it baked and turned into a cake, not a mess. I didn't think I would like this much because I'm not a fan of brandy, but I was wrong. Some of it bakes off and the fruit and nuts overpower the alcohol enough for it to be tasty goodness.

I think that's all for now. Thanksgiving is coming and I'm in charge this year, so all of my food-related thought is going into that at the moment. I will report back on that before January, I swear.

Duhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuh BATCAKE!

2008-09-08T15:57:00.001-04:00

I promised a cake, and here we are. Thank you to the birthday girl for providing the pictures.

My friend loves Batman. Her birthday was last month, so I made her a Batman birthday cake. Yum.

I didn't get to take any pictures right when it was done, so please excuse the wax drip and candle holes. And general squashiness of the cake. As we all know, I can't make a birthday cake without some sort of drama:

I work next door to a box and paper store and not far from a cake supply shop but could not find a box the right size for a 9", two layer cake. So I used a box that was slightly too small with toothpicks taped into the corners to hold it up. It looked more like a shirt box than a cake box, but I figured it would do. Guess who was wrong!

The cake left my house in perfect condition, I swear. Halfway to the party, some guys on the train started talking to me and asked to see the cake (don't ask me how they knew it was a cake). I showed it to them and it was fine. The cake was still totally intact. Somewhere between Queens and Brooklyn, the toothpicks fell off and the lid fell in. When I got to the restaurant and took the top off the box to show the birthday girl's husband the cake, half the bat symbol came off on the inside of the top of the box. And some the ganache was stuck to the sides. The cake was ruined! It was so bad the staff couldn't even tell what it was supposed to be (the husband could, though). I stood there shaking and shitting my pants (well, dress) while the staff brought us some chocolate sauce. The husband was able to fill in the outline left by the original bat with the chocolate sauce* and still get the basic look I had been going for. I didn't do it myself because my hands were shaking and they said the chocolate was at about 100 degrees.

We brought in the cake, everyone loved it and no one seemed to notice anything was wrong with it until I told them the story.

The cake is a doubled recipe of the Golden Vanilla Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Like the book suggests, I heated the soy milk and whisked in some tumeric, to get it really yellow (I was too lazy to do this for the Iron Man cake). I made this cake multiple times, because in my effort to get it good and yellow, I kept adding too much tumeric, and you could taste it. Blech.

I needed the cake nice and flat to get my stencil to sit on it, so I asked for suggestions on the PPK and got the idea to make my own cake rings:

They say cakes dome because the edges cook faster than the center. The slower cooking center puffs up, leaving the more done edges low. Cake rings are supposed to keep the edges from baking so quickly. I made mine by soaking some newspaper in cold water, wrapping it in tinfoil and taping it closed around my cake pans. I think the cakes were a bit straighter than usual, but it was hard to tell since one broke in half right out of the pan (I should have known that was an omen). Obviously, that was the bottom cake. I wonder if anyone noticed the break while they were cutting (if not, they'll know if they read this!).

I topped and filled the cake with the Fauxstess ganache from Vegan With a Vengeance because I think that one comes out closest to black. I printed the bat symbol out from the Internet, traced it onto cardboard and used that as a stencil for the icing.

Here's the cake with candles:

And the birthday girl blowing them out:

The birthday girl also loves Harry Potter. As a super nerdy bonus, this doubles as a Hufflepuff cake from the inside (assuming we keep pretending the ganache is actually black):

After this, the Iron Man cake, the Indiana Jones cake and the Yoda cupcakes, maybe I should change the name of this blog to Seitan Said Bake Dorky Things.

*Two days later, I realized I had no idea what was in that chocolate sauce and I just used it because I was desperate to save the cake. I doubt it was vegan, but such is life. It honestly didn't even occur to me at the time. I was the only vegan there, though, so with luck, my piece only had ganache on it.

The Brunchening 2.0

2008-09-05T14:41:00.001-04:00

I know I said my next post would be about cake, but I don't have pictures yet, so you get brunch instead. Sorry!

I celebrated Labor Day with a brunch picnic in Prospect Park. Almost all recipes came from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's upcoming brunch book Crack of Noon. I cannot express how much love I have for most of the recipes that will be in this book. The sausages, waffles, scones and scrambles are some of the best food I've ever eaten.

I don't know how I managed to eat almost nothing but brunch for three months without a waffle maker. I didn't realize I had that much restraint, but my period of deprivation is over. To celebrate, I made Cornbread Waffles With Pantry Mole Rojo And Seitan and Buckwheat Waffles With Red Wine Tarragon Mushroom Gravy.

Cornbread Waffle with Pantry Mole Rojo and Seitan:

The cornbread waffle is great. It's almost like a waffle-shaped corn muffin. I love corn muffins so much. The seitan is so simple, but incredibly tasty. I made the Simple Seitan recipe from Veganomicon, and sauteed it with some red onion and yellow pepper. Easy and delicious. I actually ate most of it without the mole or the waffles and think it'd be great over rice. This was my first mole and I found it really interesting. I don't think I've ever made anything with such a wide variety of ingredients before. Chocolate, chili, raisins, peanut butter, tortilla chips and other things all came together to make a really nice sauce. It was so nice some of my friends at it alone and one did a little dance with her waffle:

Buckwheat Waffles with Red Wine Tarragon Mushroom Gravy:

That waffle looks a little odd because it was the last one, made with the leftover batter. It was the only one to get eaten at the picnic because we were full and it was small. The buckwheat waffles are good, and feel kind of healthy, which is nice. The gravy is rich and awesome. I'd love to put it over mashed potatoes (actually, that may be dinner tonight) or seitan steaks. I'm definitely going to make it again in the winter.

Wallowing in Waffles:

Of everything I've made for brunch so far, I think I've had the most fun with sausage (get your minds out of the gutters, people). The recipes are so easy: make dough, wrap it up like a Tootsie Roll in some foil and steam it. In less than an hour, you have tasty sausages. This time, I made Cherry Sage Sausages. Dried cherries in sausages never would have occurred to me, but I'm glad it occurred to Isa because they freaking rule.

You know what else is kind of awesome? Tofu Benny. Seriously. Have you ever had homemade vegan hollandaise while sitting on the ground in Brooklyn? I have. It'll be something to tell the grandkids. Someone else's grandkids.

Yup. That there is marinated tofu over a slice of tomato with smoked salt, on a bed of Diner Home Fries from Veganomicon, smothered in hollandaise. It tastes even better than it looks and sounds, I swear. And the cute little circles sit so nicely on top of the tomato slices (the tomato in the picture is hiding; you can almost see it on the right). It's one of those fairly easy but impressive looking dishes I love so much (it looks way more impressive when it doesn't spend an hour on the train, honest).

Does Scrambled Tortillas sound odd to you? It sounded odd to me, but I soldiered on and I'm glad I did because this is easy comfort food. It's sort of like Mexican Matzo Brei. The flavor took a few bites to grow on me, but I totally dig it now. I swear it tastes better than it looks.

Scones are required eating for brunch, right? How about Berry Lavender Scones? Those should be required eating for all the time. The recipe calls for marionberries, but I've never even seen one of those, so I made mine with a mix of raspberries and blackberries. I can't say anyone complained! These were my first scones ever and they came out quite well. Sadly, they got squished under the rest of the food on the way over (but they tasted fine, just the same):

We also had Polenta Rancheros with Cashew Sour Cream. I love polenta. I'd put it on anything. This is a nice, beany way to have it. I've eaten it for lunch every day this week and am not sick of it yet (which is sad because I just ate the last portion). I have to say the Cashew Sour Cream doesn't really taste like sour cream, though. Instead, it tastes good. I've always hated sour cream, but I'm throwing this cashew stuff on pretty much everything. Both are really easy, make a lot and reheat well, so this is a definite not-miss recipe.

All that was great, but a meal is nothing without dessert. Lucky for me, Lauren (pictured above with waffle) brought the Veganomicon Strawberry-Plum Crisp. Even after all that food, I had two large helpings. She managed to keep it warm the whole time and it was one of the best desserts I've ever had. I will definitely have to make it myself soon. Like weekly.

Despite that, when getting together with a group, I can never resist the urge to bake something (and the scones just weren't enough), so I made donuts. Yes, donuts. I got the recipe from VeganYumYum, the mini donut pan from Amazon and had a grand time.

The chocolate ones came out very similar to the ones from Entenmann's, just a bit more bitter because I used semi-sweet chocolate. I think I may try these again using rice milk chocolate.

And with sprinkles. Like Homer Simpson, but more awesome:

Hopefully, my next post will be cake!

My Own Personal Cake Wreck?

2008-08-26T10:13:00.000-04:00

Damn, it's been a while. Almost two months. I'm still eating (and even cooking), but I've been super lazy about the photographing and the writing. Sorry.

I've resurfaced to share the cake I made for my brother's seventeenth birthday (and another cake I made this weekend, but I don't have pictures yet). Months ago (before the movie came out) he mentioned in passing that he'd like an Iron Man birthday cake. One of the bonuses of having a big sister who likes to bake is that if you mention wanting any cake in passing, it's bound to end up in your face sooner or later, whether it comes out right or not.

Behold!

Errr....yeah. I'm not sure if it's bad enough for Cake Wrecks, but it's certainly....something.

I'm kind of proud of how the face bit came out because I had to draw that freehand (onto cardboard to make a stencil to use on the cake). I can't draw anything. I fuck up Tic-Tac-Toe. And this is almost identifiable, so that's a big step for me.

As for the color...fail. I thought I bought gold for the face, but I bought copper. I added a bit of orange and loads of yellow and I think it got a little better, but the icing was getting over beaten and too wet, so I had to stop. Wilton calls that pinkish color on the outside burgundy. What? I do not think it means what Wilton thinks it means. As you see it, I added some black and about half a container of red. Sheesh. I guess it's Springtime for Iron Man. He's got his Easter bonnet on.

So what is this monstrosity? Outside, it's the Vegan Fluffy Buttercream Frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Inside is the Golden Vanilla Cupcakes recipe from the same book, filled with a strawberry variation of the raspberry layer from the Raspberry Chocolate Chip Blondie Bars from Vegan With a Vengeance. I was trying to go for a red and gold theme on the inside, too, but I was too lazy to add the tumeric to the cake (more on that in my next cake post), so it looks more red and white:

(the eyes are marzipan, by the way)

Regardless of how it looks, it was still damn tasty and that's the important part, right? I don't seem to be able to make a birthday cake without some sort of screw up, and this is a pretty low-key one, when I think about the problems I've had in the past. I just wish Wilton made Pantones.