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!

The only picture we mananged to get of her smiling. Thanks, Kendal.

Yesterday was Emma’s birthday party and man, was it hot!  Perfect weather, actually, since there was a bit of a breeze.  She seemed to enjoy herself; although, every time I ask her if she had fun, she tells me that it was too tiring.  I agree.  Next year, she seems down for a trip somewhere in lieu of a big party.  The theme was garden/spring/bugs.

I bet you’re all wondering what was on the menu so without further delay, here you go:

Fruit:  pineapple, watermelon, grapes, strawberries, cantaloupe and blueberries (and a special thanks to Nana Sally for contributing the best tasting blueberries I’ve had all year– blueberries are one of Emma’s favorite foods).  I used the top half of a pineapple as the centerpiece of the fruit tray.  Then I cut some melon flowers and put them on skewers into the pineapple.  I used green leaf lettuce around the edge for a little something extra.  Turned out cute.

Snack Tray #1:  cherry tomatoes, edamame, spring rolls with Quick Peanut Sauce from Vegan Lunch Box.

Snack Tray #2:  mini pitas, crackers, baby carrots, bell pepper slices, cucumber slices and falafel.

For the kiddos:  PB&J flowers.  Centers are strawberry and grape halves secured with a toothpick.

Cake:

A cupcake tower of strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, chocolate mint, lemon and coconut.  The cupcakes were topped with fondant ladybugs, butterflies, caterpillars, and flowers.  On top of the tower was a “cake” with a candle for Emma to blow out.  I didn’t have time to make an actual cake, so I used styrofoam and covered it with homemade chocolate fondant.  The decor at the top is all made from gum paste and fondant.  Extra embellishments– i.e. the ladybug spots, etc.– are all done with a vegan royal icing (sub Ener-G Egg Replacer for egg white).

I know all of this looks like it took a long time to prepare, and it did, but the great thing about it is that a lot of it can be done ahead of time.  The faux “cake” I made about two weeks ahead of time.  The fondant decorations for the cupcakes were done about a month ago, as with the decorations for the faux “cake.”  All of the cupcakes have been leftovers from the various batches I’ve made over the last month, except for the chocolate and vanilla ones.  I cut up and arranged all the fruit the day before.  The falafel was cooked the day before and reheated the day of.  Yes, it was a lot of work, but breaking it up into more manageable parts made it much easier.

This past weekend, I was in Sacramento for my 10-year high school reunion and a friend’s baby shower.  I had offered to make cupcakes for the shower and the mama-to-be requested chocolate mint, mocha, lemon and coconut.  I’ve never made coconut cake before, but I figured I could alter my lemon cake recipe slightly to make it coconut.  Guess what?!  It worked!  To make the coconut cake, follow the lemon cake recipe exactly, but sub coconut milk (either light or full fat) for the soy milk and coconut extract for the lemon extract.  You could even add an extra teaspoon of coconut extract to the cake batter, if you wanted to kick the coconut up a notch.  For the buttercream, follow the lemon buttercream recipe exactly, but sub coconut extract for the lemon.  I’ve made this one more time since I made it for this batch of cupcakes, and I think it’s better with an extra 1/2 to full teaspoon of coconut extract.  After frosting, roll in flaked coconut.  All cupcakes were topped with fondant flowers that matched the theme.

I made the cupcake stand following these instructions and covered it in paper that matched the theme of the shower.  The one thing I did not do was glue the paper to the cake boards– I used double stick tape instead to make it less permanent.  To buy all the materials for this project is pretty pricy, but by making it reusable, I’ll get more life out of it.

Emma’s birthday was on Monday.  Lots of birthdays around here– hers Monday, mine today.  She turned 3 which, to me, means she’s not a baby anymore.  3 means almost ready for kindergarten.  Makes me sad.

Anyway, we threw her a little surprise party on Sunday because she had been staying with my parents for the weekend and they were bringing her back home.  We had my Nutburgers (which everyone LOVED– my Dad even asked for the recipe even though he claims that most of my vegan recipes are “too labor intensive”), along with some broccoli, watermelon, and store bought potato chips and popcorn.  Emma loves popcorn.

For dessert, I made some strawberry cupcakes!  I have never in my life had strawberry cake before, but I think it is now one of my favorites.  I may even try the same recipe with peaches this summer when fresh peaches are so abundant.  The recipe is in the The Joy of Vegan Baking.  I frosted them with a Strawberry Buttercream, which was a modification of the Raspberry Buttercream recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.  Since it’s not exactly the same recipe, it’s probably safe to post it here.  I found the cake to be delicious, but the frosting to be insanely sweet when combined with the cake.  Tips for improving the sweetness level at the bottom of the recipe.

Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

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1/4 cup non-hydrogenated shortening
1/4 cup non-hydrogenated, non-dairy margarine
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
4 TB strawberry flavored syrup (the kind for making Italian sodas, not for waffles)

Cream together the shortening and margarine. Add the powdered sugar and syrup. If frosting is too thin, add more sugar.

As you can see, this recipe is pure sugar (and fat).  Next time, I will order some strawberry extract from the internet somewhere (impossible to find in the stores) and use a teaspoon of that.  Then cut back the syrup by half and add a splash of soymilk if it is too thick.  That would probably be the best way to achieve a strong strawberry flavor without it being overwhelmingly sweet.

My birthday is coming up (tomorrow, actually) and to celebrate, my friends and hubby treated me to a delicious dinner at Basil, then dancing at Bootie this past Saturday.  Matt was a guest DJ at Bootie and I try to go see him play when I can.  He didn’t disappoint– it was an awesome fun time!  Bootie is a mashup club in San Francisco run by some of my hubby’s good friends and it’s always a good time.  If you’re curious about mashups, here’s my favorite (made by my husband, of course):

dj-matt-hite-everybody-is-right

I made my own cake because I can’t resist any opportunity to make cake.  It’s something I find enjoyable and it’s good practice.  I will be good at making cakes one day!  Since we were partying it up at Bootie, I went with a pink pirate themed cake.  Get it– bootie, like pirates treasure booty.  Aargh!

The only problem is that my pirate that was supposed to go on top didn’t turn out.  Vegan white chocolate, while hard to find, doesn’t melt as well as non-vegan white chocolate.  That, and the fact that somebody’s little fingers kept messing with it (Emma!!), caused my pirate to fall apart when I went to put her on my cake.  I’ll give the technique another try later.  Anyway, so my pirate fell apart and I didn’t have the time/motivation to attempt another.  I ran off to the party supply store only to find a very small selection of pirate-themed party supplies, none of them pink, so I went with Hello Kitty instead.  Then I made her an eye patch out of chocolate fondant and that was my pirate cake!

The cake itself was the chocolate cake recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking with a few teaspoons of coffee extract added to the batter.  I baked it (2 separate batches) in two 6-inch cake pans, for a total of 4 layers.  The buttercream in between the layers was a Kahlua Mocha Buttercream and it was so boozily delicious.

Kahlua Mocha  Buttercream Frosting

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1/2 cup non-hydrogenated shortening

1/2 cup non-hydrogenated, non-dairy margarine

5 cups powdered sugar, sifted

3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 cup (2 oz) good, dark chocolate, melted and cooled (or more cocoa powder)

8 TB Kahlua

2 tsp vanilla extract

3 tsp coffee extract

Cream together the shortening and margarine.  Gradually add the powdered sugar, cocoa powder and melted chocolate (your chocolate MUST be cooled, or it will melt the shortening and margarine and you will have a big mess on your hands).  Add the Kahlua and extracts.  If your frosting is too thin, add more sugar.  If too thick, add a splash more of Kahlua.

A few things first:  Good-tasting vegan fondant is hard to come by, unless you make it yourself.  After much research and experimentation, I have come up with a yummy chocolate rolled fondant recipe with an option to leave it a white rolled fondant.  Since I used chocolate fondant for my pirate cake, here’s how I made it:

Vegan Rolled Fondant

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Makes enough to cover a 10″ x 4″ high cake

¼ cup cold water

1 TB agar-agar flakes*

2 pounds (8 cups) powdered sugar, sifted

½ cup cocoa powder (omit if you want white fondant)

½ cup light corn syrup

1 ½ TB glycerin

2 TB non-hydrogenated shortening

1 tsp vanilla extract (omit if you want white fondant)

1.      Do not attempt to make this unless you can devote a solid, uninterrupted hour to it.  It probably won’t take you that long, but it’s not something that you can leave and come back to.

2.      Put the cold water into a small sauce pan.  Sprinkle the agar-agar flakes on top and set aside.

3.      Divide the powdered sugar between two large bowls.  In one of the bowls, add the cocoa powder to the 4 cups of powdered sugar.  Make a well in the center.  Set aside.

4.      Now that the agar-agar flakes have had a chance to soften in the water, turn the heat to medium to cook them.  Do not attempt to cook on high heat.  Low and slow is the rule here!  This is the most important step in the process of making fondant because you need to be completely sure that all of the agar flakes are dissolved before proceeding.

Notice all of the “speckles” at the bottom of the pan-those are the still undissolved agar flakes.  As the water begins to dissolve the agar, the mixture at the bottom will become gelatinous.  Add more water slowly (a tablespoon at a time), let it dissolve more agar, then add more until there are no more speckles of flakes visible in the pan.  You may end up adding more than cup of water to fully dissolve the flakes, but you need to do so gradually so as not to add too much.  The process of dissolving the agar takes probably 15 minutes.

Getting closer, but still not there!

Finally done!

And that’s what it should look like– gelatinous goo at the bottom of the pan.

5.      Add the rest of the ingredients to the pan and stir to combine.  Pour this mixture into the well inside the bowl of powdered sugar and cocoa.  Begin stirring, incorporating a little more powdered sugar from the outside of the well at a time.

6.      When all of the sugar from this bowl has been incorporated, start adding scoops of sugar that have been reserved in the other bowl.  When the mixture becomes too stiff to stir with a spoon, knead it with your hands.

7.      Knead in more sugar until the mixture doesn’t stick to your hands or the bowl anymore.  You will probably only use about 6 cups of sugar total.

8.      Shape the fondant into a ball, wrap tightly with plastic wrap and allow to rest at room temperature overnight before using.

9.      To make white fondant, follow this same recipe and process, but omit the cocoa powder and vanilla extract.

* I have only used agar-agar flakes for this recipe.  I have not tried powder.  If you do intend to use agar powder, use 2 tsp max.  EDIT:  If you find this recipe by a random web search, check out this post for more information on using agar-agar powder instead of flakes.  I find that powder produces a better finished product than flakes do.

So let’s revisit the boob cake:

I made up a batch of vanilla cake, but baked it in a small stainless steel bowl.  It took a long time, probably 40 minutes, for the center to be completely done.  Once cooled, I carved them to be roughly the same sized domes then covered them in a thin layer of chocolate buttercream, and then covered them with fondant (the same fondant recipe above).  I made white fondant (omitting the cocoa powder and vanilla) then tinted it with a few drops of yellow and red food coloring paste.  To achieve a true skin tone, I kneaded in several tablespoons of cocoa powder (a little at a time).  A few more drops of red added to the skin-tone fondant makes the nips.

… then you may just want to skip this post.

One of my favorite blogs, Yeah, That “Vegan” Shit is hosting a kooky contest.  Kooky, but fun.  Hey, I like kooky, fun and contests, so there was NO WAY I wouldn’t participate.  So, without further ado, I present to you my entry for the Nippular Cookbook Contest:

See, it really is cake!

What’s a Nippular Cookbook Contest?  Well, whoever makes the best set of nips or boobies out of food wins 3 vegan cookbooks.  Obviously, I went with a full set of boobies here constructed out of vegan vanilla cake with chocolate icing covered with (homemade) vegan fondant.  Everything (except the nipple rings) is edible.  And for fun, I threw a few mardi gras beads in the pic because I can’t think of any other place where more (pierced) boobies may be hanging out for anyone to see.

And just like what typically occurs in nature, one side is slightly larger than the other.  I totally meant to do that.  I know you’re all dying now to make your own cake boobies.  I’ll post my fondant recipe and how I made these babies after the contest closes.

For Easter, we went to Matt’s mom’s house for a yummy feast and brought along these cupcakes– chocolate with chocolate buttercream and lemon with lemon buttercream topped with gum paste flowers and chocolate butterflies.

The gum paste I actually made myself– get yourself a container of Gum- Tex and follow the directions on the can.  It’s tinted using food coloring paste and cut with a simple flower cutter.

The butterflies are an idea from some cake decorating book that I borrowed from the library a while back.  I can’t remember the name of the book, but these butterflies turned out cute and are pretty easy to make, just be sure to make more than you will need because these are super delicate.  All you have to do is melt down some chocolate (like pure chocolate, not chocolate chips or chocolate with a bunch of stuff added to it), and pipe a design onto wax paper.  When the chocolate dries, carefully peel it off the wax paper.  Be sure that the detail inside the butterfly wings touches the outline of the wings at all points to provide more stability.  The wings are piped separately then “glued” together after they have hardened by the “body” of the butterfly.  You will need to prop them up against something while the body dries.

The chocolate cake recipe was my old standby from The Joy of Vegan Baking and the lemon cake is a variation of the “yella cake” recipe from La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer. I borrowed this book from the library and I wouldn’t mind adding it to my personal cookbook library. There are lots of yummy looking recipes in here, and it’s the best vegan vanilla cake recipe that I’ve tried.

Lemon Cake with Lemon Buttercream

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Lemon Cake

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup non-hydrogenated, non-dairy margarine

1 1/2 tsp Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed with 2 TB water

1 tsp vanilla

2 tsp lemon extract

1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup soymilk

2 drops yellow food coloring (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line muffin tin with paper liners or spray with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the sugar, margarine, egg replacer, vanilla and lemon.  Add the flour, baking powder, salt, soymilk and yellow food coloring.  Stir to combine.  Fill muffin tins 2/3 full with batter and bake for 15-18 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.  Remove cupcakes from tin and cool completely on a wire rack.

Lemon Buttercream

1/4 cup non-hydrogenated shortening

1/4 cup non-hydrogenated, non-dairy margarine, softened

2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

1 tsp vanilla

3 tsp lemon extract

1 drop of yellow food coloring (optional)

Splash of non-dairy milk

Cream together the shortening and margarine until well combined.  Add the powdered sugar a little at a time until incorporated into the margarine and shortening.  Add the vanilla, lemon and food coloring and mix to combine.  If frosting is too stiff, add a splash of non-dairy milk until a spreadable consistency is achieved.

This is pretty exciting…

Whipped cream… that’s vegan?!  YES!  And there’s no soy.  But what is it made of, you ask?!  Coconut cream.

Coconut cream, which I’ve only seen in Asian markets, is coconut milk that I think has more coconut in it than water.  It’s thicker and richer, sort of like how dairy cream is thicker and richer than dairy milk.  But, if you couldn’t find coconut cream, I’m fairly confident that regular coconut milk will work too.

Vegan Whipped Cream

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1 can coconut cream (or coconut milk)

1 tsp vanilla

1 TB pure maple syrup

Place the coconut cream in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight.   Also place your beaters and (metal) mixing bowl in the freezer or fridge to get them nice and frosty.  When the coconut cream is chilled, the cream part will separate from the water part.  Carefully open the coconut cream and skim the cream off the top and add it to your frosty mixing bowl.  Add the vanilla and maple syrup and whip vigorously until it is the consistency of whipped cream.

My mom had a birthday yesterday and we helped her celebrate over the weekend.  Since I have TONS of lemons, I went for a lemon cake with lemon buttercream.  To fancy it up a bit, I added layers of blackberry jam too.  To make the cake, I used the chocolate cake recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking but just left out the cocoa powder and added a few teaspoons of lemon zest. The cake was fine, but still not great. I haven’t found a vegan vanilla cake recipe that I love yet, but I’ll try the one from ED&BV next and report back.

I totally cheated to make the layers too. I baked the whole batch of batter in a jelly roll pan and just cut out squares once it was cooled.  All of the squares then just got stacked together. It made life a whole lot easier– no having to level the layers or do any fancy carving. I used the lemon buttercream recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and found that it is way too soft. I recommend only using half the amount of liquid at first. The buttercream kept slipping down the sides of the cake when it wasn’t refrigerated and it wasn’t even a warm weekend.  It tasted good and everyone seemed to love it, so yay for me!

Yesterday was Tuesday Party (a party just because it’s Tuesday) and we were in charge of dessert, thus another batch of vegan donuts was born– minis this time.  These were topped with chocolate glaze, maple glaze and plain glaze… and sprinkles, of course.  I think my favorite was the maple and, after attempting the recipe in my previous post, I can say with certainty that subbing maple extra for the vanilla in the vanilla glaze recipe produces a pretty tasty maple glaze.  Adjust the amount depending on how maple-y you like it– I found that I had to add a little more than recommended.

Here’s a pic of my donut pans, just in case you were wondering what they look like.