I was asked to make cupcakes for the Redwood City Mother’s Club holiday party.  I ended up making 175 cupcakes.  Unfortunately, most of my photos turned out blurry.    It wasn’t my day.  I had bought a very nice, sturdy, professional looking wooden stand to use as my display.  I had assembled it days beforehand since I knew I was going to be in a time crunch that morning.  When I went to pick up the stand, the screw hole that holds the bottom tier on was completely stripped and the whole thing came apart.  There was no saving it and I’m asking the maker to send me a replacement part which he hopefully will at no cost to me (or there will be hell to pay!!!!!!!!!). 

On the bright side, all of the cupcakes made it to the event without injury and there was a nice big table waiting for me to lay them all out on.  Flavors:  apple spice cake with maple frosting, pumpkin spice cake with “cream cheese” frosting and vanilla cake with vanilla frosting.

For Thanksgiving, my daughter conned me into making two pies! She gets me to do these things by saying that she wants to help make it but in the end, I’m the one who does all the work. Oh well. It’s a good thing I enjoy baking.

The first pie “we” made was this pumpkin pie.  The recipe can be found in The Joy of Vegan Baking. It combines pumpkin with silken tofu, some spices (cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg), and some cornstarch to thicken. The crust is made from toasted pecans, oats and whole wheat flour. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of maple syrup, but I substituted agave because it’s much, much cheaper. It turned out good, but I thought it could have used more spice. That’s just me. Everyone else really enjoyed it.

Next, I made a caramel apple pie. The recipe can be found here. (I got this recipe– and many other Thanksgiving recipes– delivered right to my inbox because I signed up for the VegNews newsletter!!) This pie was yummy, but I added some vanilla to it (based on what some of the reviews mentioned). I didn’t like it with the vanilla. It’s also a very sweet pie, so I recommend using the most tart apple you can. I used granny smith, but still found the pie to be pretty sweet. Everyone else really enjoyed it, though. Perhaps I am just to critical.

Today is my Nana’s birthday (Friday the 13th!).  To celebrate, Emma and I drove to Sacramento yesterday to have a family dinner.  We drove back this afternoon.  Quick trip, but nice to see the family and to celebrate Nana’s birthday.  Her favorite color is green, which is not the best color for covering cakes IMO.  Green makes me think of mold or rotten stuff.  I decided to cover the cake in a sage green fondant and top it with some fresh red roses and freesia.  I would have attempted to make gum paste roses, but this trip was a last minute decision and I just didn’t have the time.  I liked the addition of the fresh flowers, though.

Wondering what flowers are safe to use on cakes?  Here’s a list of flowers that are considered safe for decoration purposes and ones that are toxic.

Yesterday was Elijah’s 6th birthday.  He is the son of a very good friend of mine and I was asked to make his special Star Wars cake.  He wanted a full-on cake, not cupcakes, and since I rarely get to do real cakes, I was pretty excited.  We had decided to base everything off of the classic Star Wars movies, episodes 4, 5 and 6.  Armed with a plan, I got to work.

On Wednesday, I baked, frosted and refrigerated the bottom tier.  This took pretty much the entire day because I only have one 9″ square pan and had to do each layer (there were 4) one at a time.  It wasn’t as bad as it sounds since I didn’t have to stand guard at the oven all day.  Everything went very smoothly at a relaxed pace.

On Thursday, I baked, frosted and refrigerated the top tier, a 6″ round.  This only took a few hours in the morning and that night, I covered each tier in chocolate fondant that was tinted black.  So far, so good.  No hangups along the way.  Nothing went wrong.  Everything went according to plan.

On Friday, all I had to do was stack the cakes and decorate them.  All of the decorations were done, I just had to put them on the cake.

It was hard to get a good photo with all the sun flooding my kitchen, but the cake board was supposed to be Yoda’s planet, Dagobah.  The cake board is covered in fondant, which I then painted (with food coloring) green and brown to look like the swampy forest.  The forest floor was sprinkled with fallen “leaves” made from gum paste.  I made the trees by first making a wire support and wrapping layers of brown fondant/gum paste onto it.  The leaves on the trees are “glued” in place by royal icing.  The beads of fondant around the base of the cake were all imprinted with a star.

On the front of the cake, was the Star Wars logo (made from white gum paste) glued into place with royal icing.  On top of the first tier, Luke and Darth Vader are engaged in a light saber battle while Han Solo is fighting the Stormtroopers.

On the top tier, Emperor Palpatine is standing in front of the Death Star and is guarded by another Stormtrooper.  I made the Death Star out of a 5″ styrofoam ball covered with gray fondant.  The detail is piped on with gray royal icing and then painted with more gray food coloring.

So, now you’re wondering where the “cake-tastrophy” comes in.  By this point, everything had gone so super smoothly.  I wasn’t stressed at all.  Everything was done way ahead of schedule.  Nothing went wrong.

That is until we were in the car less than a mile from the drop off location.  We had picked Matt up from work on our way to the party.  He took a quick look at the cake and said he thought it didn’t look very stable.  But I was pretty confident that I had put enough support in it that it would hold up fine.  Since it was riding in the back seat next to Emma, she was on cake lookout.

The minute we got off the freeway and had to make a left turn, the cake just sort of collapsed.  When Emma told us that it had fallen, I didn’t believe her at first.  Matt took a look in the back seat and found that indeed, the cake had fallen apart.  The top tier had fallen into the bottom, collapsing the right rear of the cake.

We had a mess on our hands.  And I had no extra fondant or anything to fix it.  All I had was a large knife for cutting the cake, a cake server, and a lighter to light the candles.  Yikes!  You can see that the inside looks so delicious.  Layers of chocolate and vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream in between.  And yes, it sure was tasty.

And here it is after the fix.  Luckily, the top tier was unharmed, so I was able to cut and scoop away the collapsed bottom tier and slide the top one in to make one long cake.  Strategically placed Death Star, trees, and characters hid the mess where the fondant broke away and the cake was exposed.  The trees in the front added more support to the front of the cake, which kept threatening to fall forward.

The crazy part was that no one noticed and everyone thought it looked awesome.  No, it wasn’t my original plan (which would have been so cool), but it salvaged pretty well.  Just yesterday, I had read a post about “silver linings” over at Kristen’s Raw, the timing of which was strangely perfect.  Normally, I probably would have freaked out that the entire cake had collapsed.  Last night, though, I was pretty proud of myself for keeping a positive outlook:

1. I didn’t swear once.  In fact, when I looked in the back seat and saw the cake in a heap, I chuckled to myself a little bit.  There was an instance when we were driving in which I called another driver a jackass, but he was not obeying the posted sign which read “no left turns between 4:30 and 6″ and was trying to make a left turn across a busy street at nearly 5 pm.  My calling him a jackass was because he made me slam on my brakes, not because I was frustrated over the cake incident.
2. I didn’t accept the $20 that my hubby tried to give me to run to the store to buy a new cake.  I was determined to save it.  Had this cake been for someone other than an understanding friend, I may have been a little more frazzled.  When I called her to tell her what had happened, she also said to try to save it since it was just going to get eaten anyway.
3. Everyone loved the cake.  People even thought it came from a professional bakery.
4. And, I’ve learned a thing or two about cake construction that will help me in the future.  I should have put a cake board in between the 2nd and 3rd layers of cake, but I thought I could get away with it.  I will always err on the side of caution from now on.

My Dad’s birthday was on Friday and we all headed to Sacramento to celebrate.  We left Friday evening when Matt got home from work.  He had to DJ on Saturday night, so he left Saturday afternoon, but Emma and I stayed through Sunday and took the train home.

My Dad’s favorite dessert is peach pie.  I think I only make pie about once a year (for his birthday) and every year right before I’m ready to make it, I realize that I don’t own a pie plate.  First of all, how is it possible that I want to start a baking business and I don’t even own a pie plate?!  Anyway, I now have one on my wish list and I will definitely get one before next July 17.

A cake pan did the trick this time.  Just for fun, I cut out stars in the top crust.  The peach pie recipe was from The Joy of Vegan Baking.  The only change I made was to mix the peaches with the butter/flour/sugar mixture instead of layering it as the recipe suggests.  I also threw in some very ripe apricots.  Save yourself a buck and use frozen peaches for a pie.  You can’t really tell the difference between fresh and frozen.

Since I can’t resist and opportunity to make a cake, I also made my dad a birthday cake– vanilla with raspberry buttercream.  Yummmmy!!  Sadly, the fondant that I had made to cover the cake failed me.  It was too dry and crumbled when I rolled it out.  Anyway, I had to resort to store bought fondant– eww!  The swirls on the top are made from gum paste, which I made in my stand mixer this time and it’s the best batch of gum paste ever.  The trick is to knead in some shortening, even if the recipe doesn’t necessarily call for it.

And this horrible photo is an asian noodle salad that I made to have with dinner.  It turned out really good, so I’ll blog about it despite the horrible photo.  I didn’t measure, but it’s pretty much fool proof:  Boil noodles per package directions (we used spaghetti, but you could use whatever you want).  While noodles are boiling, make dressing in bottom of large bowl (juice from 3 limes, about 2 TB rice vinegar, about 4 TB soy sauce, pinch of red pepper flakes, a drizzle of toasted sesame oil, 2-4 TB agave).  Throw in your veggies and toss to coat with dressing.  I used some cucumbers (from my Grandma’s garden!), red cabbage, red onion (would have preferred green, but didn’t have any), cilantro, edamame, and cherry tomatoes (from my Dad’s garden).  When noodles are cooked, drain and add them to the salad.  Toss and refrigerate until ready to serve.  Top with peanuts.

We celebrated my friend, Brianne’s, birthday this last weekend. She had been craving Underdog for quite some time, so she picked some up for us to make at her new place. Here’s Underdog in a nutshell:

UNDERDOG – “The Organic Sausage Joint” is exactly just that. we are a restaurant that serves grilled organic meat and vegetarian sausages on lightly toasted gourmet organic buns. you can dress your sausage anyway you like at our self-serve organic condiment stand. we also offer organic salads, desserts, sodas, juices, drinks, chips, snacks, and candies. Everything we sell is made with natural and organic ingredients. We will never sell anything that contains gmo’s, artificial preservatives, artificial sweeteners, artificial flavors, transfats, or high fructose corn syrup. We conduct business in ways that make the least negative impact on our planet by trying to always use packaging, supplies, and disposables made from either recycled paper and/or biodegradable products made from renewable and sustainable resources like corn, potatoes, bamboo, or sugar cane. We recycle as much as we can and encourage you to do the same. We try to always only use non-toxic and biodegradable cleaners. We donate a portion of our profits to local charities. We are the UNDERDOG!

While I’ve never been to the shop, I can highly recommend them based on Brianne’s recommendation and based on trying them at her house this weekend.  They were awesome!  Underdog is located at :

1634 Irving Street San Francisco, CA. 94122
(Between 17th and 18th Avenue, Inner Sunset)

I tried the Veggie Italian and the Veggie-Dog.  Both were really good– so good that I can’t choose a favorite.  I would eat both again.

I made dessert (of course!) and since Brianne doesn’t like cake, she requested Mexican Wedding Cookies.  I couldn’t stop there, so I made a Birthday Dessert Platter of Mexican Wedding Cookies, low-fat Zucchini Brownies and fresh strawberries.  I’ll be offering these through my bakery… if I ever get the website up and running.  I have the domain, just not the time to actually get the website looking good.  That sort of explains my absence lately… business has really picked up and I’m a little worried that it’s taking off faster than I can keep up.  I just need a few more hours each day to get it all done!

I made LOTS of fondant yesterday (seriously, I used about 6 pounds of sugar!) and experimented  a bit:

I’ve always used agar agar flakes to make it, but I was somewhat annoyed with how long it took for them to fully dissolve.  This one step often took more than 15 minutes and for something that I don’t necessarily enjoy doing, this was entirely too long.  Making fondant, to me, is somewhat of a pain– first you have to sift all that powdered sugar and then you have to wait for the flakes to dissolve.  Don’t get me wrong– homemade fondant is so far superior to storebought that it’s worth the effort.  But yesterday, I needed to make a batch of white and a few batches of chocolate.  That’s potentially 45 minutes or more of just waiting for the agar flakes too dissolve!

Enter agar powder.  I’ve tried this before and I think I used too much powder for the amount of water in the recipe.  When using powdered agar, generally the ration is 1 tsp of powder to 1 TB of flakes.  And in a recipe, you can generally substitute 1:1 agar flakes for gelatin.  So I used powder and it did indeed cut down on “dissolve time.”

If you use my fondant recipe, follow as directed, except use about 1 1/2 tsp of agar powder for the agar flakes.  You may need to add a little bit more water if it becomes too pasty.  The brand of powder I used (pictured left) even has vanilla flavoring in it, so you can get that vanilla taste into your fondant without using vanilla extract, which will give your fondant an off-white color.

Side Note:  I found this brand of agar at the Asian market.  Be careful when you buy it because it also comes in red and green (as in it has red and green coloring added to it) and all three packages are identical.  Read the ingredients list before throwing it into your cart.

The difference between using powder over flakes:

1. Once dissolved, the water will become gelatinous, but you are left with more liquid than if you use flakes.  This means that you will need much more sugar to get the right consistency.  Plan on using more like 9 cups per recipe (which will produce more fondant per batch).
2. The consistency of the finished product is near perfect once all of the sugar gets kneaded in.  The problem I find when using flakes is that the fondant reaches a perfect consistency after it has been allowed to sit for several days.  On the day it’s made, I find it to be a little too soft to use right away.
3. You won’t have to worry about having bits of undissolved flakes floating around your fondant.

The verdict for me is that powder is better than flakes here.  It dissolves faster and produces a better finished product.  My next fondant experiment will be to see if I can use my stand mixer with the dough hook attachment to knead in the sugar, rather than by doing it by hand.  The process of kneading in the sugar is very similar to kneading bread dough so it stands to reason that it should work.  Stay tuned!

As you know, I have LOTS of zucchini around here.  I’ve been using it up by making lots of zucchini bread and giving it away or freezing it for later.  Last night, I really wanted to make these chocolate zucchini muffins again, but I wanted it in loaf form because it doesn’t take up so much freezer space, and I was also in the mood for a little experimantation.  So, I took the chocolate zucchini muffin recipe and smooshed it with the zucchini bread recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking and came up with this Chocolate Zucchini Bread hybrid.  And it is soooo delicious!

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

(makes 2 loaves)

Wet

2 ripe bananas, mashed well

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 TB white distilled vinegar

2 cups sugar

2 cups grated zucchini

2 tsp vanilla extract

Dry

3 cups flour (I used 1.5 cups whole wheat pastry and 1.5 cups all-purpose)

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Prepare 2 loaf pans by spraying them with non-stick spray and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine all of the wet ingredients and mix well.  In a separate bowl, either sift together the dry ingredients (minus the chocolate chips) or use a whisk to break up any clumps.  Mix everything together well.  Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir until just combined.  Divide evenly between the 2 loaf pans and bake for 60-70 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.

This weekend was pretty fun…  we headed to Sacramento for a family reunion (my mom’s side) and I was in charge of dessert!  Not knowing how many people would actually show up, I made a batch of strawberry cupcakes with strawberry buttercream, chocolate cupcakes with cookies & cream buttercream, and (from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World) tiramisu cupcakes.  As you may expect, there were way more cupcakes than necessary, but it allowed people to have seconds and take some home!

The tiramisu cupcakes are a vanilla cake (I used my own recipe, not the one in the book because– in my opinion– the cake recipes in the book all turn out really weird) topped with cream cheese frosting.  Before putting on the frosting, you scoop out a little well in the center of the cake and generously fill it with Kahlua and coffee.  Delicious!  I think this is my new favorite.  It would also make a really delicious layered cake.

Everyone enjoyed all three, but I think the kids (well, teenagers) really liked the chocolate with cookies & cream.  I’ve made it before, but this time I used my food processor to get the cookie chunks much smaller.  I liked that better.

Last, but not least, we have my mom’s favorite, the strawberry.  I’m really anxious to try the strawberry recipe with peaches.  Doesn’t that sound heavenly and so summery?  Peach cupcakes!  Yum!!

My dad has a garden and this year he’s planted more than just tomatoes. His tomatoes are awesome, btw. Check out these zucchini that he said “got away from him.”

The photo doesn’t really do them justice.  The larger one is about 18″ long and 15″ around. It weighs 6 pounds. That’s not much smaller than Emma when she was born. The smaller one is 15″ long, 11.5″ around and 4 pounds. I predict lots of zucchini bread and some chocolate zucchini muffins in our future.

Now for the best part. There is this billboard near our house that I see all the time. Since I’m the one driving and I almost never have my camera handy, I can never get a picture of it. Well, as we were crossing the Bay Bridge yesterday (Matt was driving), I saw the exact same one and was able to get a pic.

In case you can’t read it, it says “Be Veg!  Go Green!  Save the Planet!”  The ad is sponsored by the people that run this website.  While the website is a little strange, it does have some very interesting information on it:

• According to the UNreport “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” livestock production is the greatest contributor to global warming.
• Animal waste and feed cropland dump more pollutants into our waterways than all other human activities combined.
• Meat-based diets require 10-20 times as much land as plant-based diets – nearly half of the world’s grains & soybeans are fed to animals.

I can think of NO good reasons to eat meat, when you take into account how horribly the animals are treated, how it contributes to climate change, and it’s effects on your health.  Seriously, I’m the weirdo at a restaurant who has to pick apart a menu item to make it suitable for me, when in reality, you are the weirdo for suppoting this.  Anyway, I was really surprised that someone would pay for such an ad (happy about it, but still surprised).  I do hope there are ads elsewhere other than the Bay Area where vegetarianism is really pretty common.

Emma’s friend, Lily had her birthday party this weekend.  Lily’s mom, Ginger, has let Emma take a bunch of art classes for free, so this was my golden opportunity to return the favors.  Anyway, Lily had a pool party and the theme was sea creatures/under the sea/mermaids (but not Ariel).  Here’s what I came up with:

As it turned out, I wasn’t feeling well and ended up not going to the party.  Matt took Emma and the cupcakes and was tasked with setting everything up.  He did an amazing job!  For the top, I made a giant octopus, some sea shells and sand dollars all out of gum paste.  The octopus head and tentacles are all secured to the cupcake with toothpicks.  I had started working on the cakes at 6:30 that morning (frosting and puting on on the decorations), and by 10:30 when the party started, you can see that the weight from the octopus started breaking down the cupcake.  It was definitely leaning a bit.  I wish I hadn’t stuck everything in quite so early, but having just made the pieces the morning before, I was really concerned that they weren’t going to be dry enough to use and that I would have to come up with a plan B.  Luckily, everything worked out and they were dry enough to use.

The cupcake flavors were chocolate, vanilla and strawberry with strawberry, chocolate and chocolate peanut butter buttercreams.  Let me tell you, the chocolate peanut butter is heavenly!  I’ve been toying with the idea of a chocolate peanut butter buttercream and tested it out here.  I thought it was delicious, but since I didn’t go the party, I’m not sure how everyone else enjoyed it.  All the toppers were made from fondant and/or gum paste (mostly fondant because it tastes better) and included some fish, coral, starfish, octopus, sea turtles, and crabs.  I wish I had more close up photos of those, but I don’t.