Attention: Durham, North Carolina!

I’ve been working at Francesca’s (on 9th Street) as a part time barista since February.  If you’re from Durham, undoubtedly you’re familiar with it.  It’s exciting for vegans in that they actually make soy gelatos!  And you know, this isn’t California.  The South isn’t exactly full of soy gelato.   However, until recently, those handmade soy gelatos really didn’t live up to the packaged So Delicious, Purely Decadent, or Tofutti soy ice creams found in stores.  At least they didn’t to me.  They’re not bad, mind you… just not as rich and creamy as a pint of Purely Decadent Peanut Butter Zig Zag, or Tofutti Blueberry Cheesecake, or So Delicious Turtle Trails, or… well, my dear vegans, it doesn’t really matter what they weren’t as rich and creamy as, because I’m happy to tell you it’s a brand new world here at Francesca’s!

The lovely and illustrious Tina, who makes all the gelatos and sorbettos in these here parts, has come out with a soy peanut butter chip gelato, and it is 100% fantastic.   It’s still a little lighter than the aforementioned brands, but that’s gelato for you.   It has less fat than ice cream as a general rule.   But the peanut butter chip is creamy and peanut buttery and just so so good!  As an employee, I get to eat little tastes of the gelato while I’m at work, and I must admit that I’ve been “tasting” the hell out of the peanut butter chip.  Quality control!  Gotta make sure it’s still fabulous every couple hours… or every few minutes…. or every few seconds…

The peanut butter chip is good in all sorts of ways.  It’s good just in a cup, it’s good in a cone, it’s good in a coffee float, it’s good in a soy milkshake, it’s good with some espresso poured over it, it’s good here or there, yes I will eat it anywhere!  I will eat it in a house, I will eat it with a mouse… Yes I like it, daddy-o, Yes I like soy gelato!

Erm, Dr. Seuss aside, my new favorite way to eat the peanut butter chip is in a COOKIE SANDWICH.  A cookiewich!  Francesca’s has 2 types of vegan cookies on hand, and the better of the 2 is the peanut butter cookie, which was just begging to become a peanut butter cookie peanut butter chocolate chip gelato sandwich.  Whoo, that’s a lot of words.  Let’s just call it a peanut butter cookiewich.   Anyway, I couldn’t say no to the poor cookies.  If they really wanted to be cookiewiches, well then cookiewiches they would be!   I’m supportive like that.

First I took two peanut butter cookies and smooshed some gelato on the flat side of one of them, like so:

Smoooooosh!

Then, to sweeten the deal, I added a little swirl of chocolate syrup:

CHOCOLATE

I won’t lie to you.  It’s Hershey’s.  It’s not particularly healthy nor particularly good, but it is vegan and it was on hand at work.

Then, I added the other cookie, and voila!

*drool*

Cookiewich!  It was extraordinarily rich and filling and DELICIOUS.   I was quite the happy vegan.

Now, this particular confection isn’t on the menu at Francesca’s, but you can buy 2 cookies and a bambini of gelato and it comes out to $3.75 + tax.  $4.04 when you factor in the tax.   Or you can just go with one cookie and have an open faced cookiewich.  Just as good, really.   It doesn’t need a lot of gelato.  A bambini is plenty.   Anyway, I can’t speak for the others, but I would be happy to assemble this treat for you.  And if I’m not on shift, you can always just scoop the gelato out of your little bambini cup and squish it onto the cookie with a fork yourself.

Om nom nom!   Allons-y!   À Francesca’s, tout le monde!

Dear friends,

I’ve got some good news and bad news.  The bad news is that my lease ran out and I no longer have an inspected kitchen, therefore I cannot legally sell my baked goods anymore.  The good news is that now I can post recipes!  If I’m not trying to sell the yummy things I make, there is no reason why I can’t tell you how to make them, right?  To be perfectly honest I prefer giving things away to selling things anyway, so this really suits me more.

What I want everyone to know about right now are these amazing amazing brownie recipes by Hannah Kaminksy.  I normally like to make my own recipes, but I came across these and are they are so fudgy and dense and chewy and chocolatey and perfect that I’ve just got to give her major props.   It was love at first bite.  Believe me, I am picky about my brownies.

Best Brownies Ever

Yes those are oreos in there.   I think it’s the oreos that push them into the realm of beyond perfection.  They call for vegan sour cream, which can be a bit pricey, but you can substitute puréed tofu and it’ll give it the same fudgey density.  Also, if you can’t find the bittersweet chocolate it calls for, use half unsweetened bakers chocolate and half semi-sweet chocolate chips, and it will result in the most perfect dark chocolate flavor that will have you yearning for a tall glass of soymilk.

I’ve been modeling lately and I brought a batch of these fabulous brownies in for the models and crew at School House.  Pretty sure the crew ate more than the models did…  Incidentally, although it isn’t food related, I feel like the School House line fits in perfectly with the ethics of many vegans in that the factory workers are paid living wages in Sri Lanka.

I have been a busy little pastry chef over the past month.. making lots of cakes and cupcakes!  Not all of which I managed to photograph…. but I did remember to photograph a few!

First off, we have a red velvet cake with “cream cheese” frosting (not really cream cheese obviously):

pink!

And the side-view:

mm frosting

Next we have a chocolate cake with chocolate filling and buttercream frosting with chocolate accents:

Huzzah for Eric!

And the side view:

squiggles

And a close up on one of the flowers:

yum chocolate flowers!

Next is a chocolate cake with raspberry filling, raspberry buttercream frosting, and chocolate covered raspberries:

rasberrriieees!

But it turned out, the cake  wasn’t for “Jen”!  Whoops!  It’s ok though.  I fixed it.  And it turns out that chocolate covered raspberries are AMAZING.  They practically liquify the moment you cover them with chocolate.  So good.  And the frosting actually has puréed raspberries in it.

I was on a squiggly kick...

Next up is chocolate cupcakes with raspberry filling and PB frosting… might sound weird but it was soooooo good!

match made in heaven

The peanut butter frosting was quite probably the best frosting I’ve ever made or tasted.

cupcakes are for cool people

And the last cake I have to share with you today is a 3 layer lemon pound cake with lemon frosting…

Thomas the Tank!

… for a two year old Thomas the Tank enthusiast!   I did a frozen buttercream transfer for this.  In other news, I’ve never taken a cake decorating class!

Thomas the Lemon Tank

That’s all folks!

I love breakfast.  It is my favorite meal.  I love pancakes, waffles, crepes, french toast, croissants, pain au chocolat, danish, pie, cinnamon buns… etc.   I also love cereal and toast and fruit and oatmeal and yogurt…but this post isn’t about the simple things.  It’s about me waking up and being ridiculous.

I woke up this morning and decided I needed a tart for breakfast.  Not just any tart… the crust had to be made out of coconut flour.  If you’re not familiar with coconut flour, it is awesome.

Bob sure knows his flours

Coconut flour is high in fiber, a good source of protein, and has a great flavor and texture.  It’s slightly sweet, almost nutty, and absurdly rich.   So, I laid my eyes on this guy and it was settled.  My tart would be wheat free… depending solely on coconut goodness for its grains.

I’m afraid I basically winged this whole thing so I don’t have a real recipe, although if there is interest I could make this again and actually measure things next time around.

I used a basic “Press-in-pan Tart Pastry” recipe, except I had to add way more water to the dough because the high fiber content of the coconut flour just sucks up all the moisture.

Nutty for coconut (flour)!

Then, I decided that my tart would have a nice creamy almost cheesecakey layer.  All I had on hand was yogurt, and you know what? It was perfect.  I mixed in a tablespoon of coconut flour to give it a thicker more cheesecake-like texture, then I pulled out my secret weapon. This guy:

Grapefruits of Wrath

I zested some of the grapefruit into the yogurt mixture:

zesty

Then I sliced open my beautiful fruit and squeezed some juice into the yogurt mixture.

Ruby Red, sha-la-la-la

Ok, we need to take a break from talking about my tart and switch to talking about this grapefruit.  Have you ever seen such a gorgeous fruit?  It was soooo good.  I expected it to be pale and bitter, but it was bright red and sweet!  To die for.

Ok! Back to the tart!  I squeezed some juice into the yogurt.  Then, I grabbed a bunch of blueberries and some strawberries and squeezed some grapefruit onto them, too.

Then, I assembled the tart… with the yogurt layer on the bottom and the fruit on the top, like so:

A berry good breakfast!

Then, as if that weren’t enough, I decided that my tart needed a crumble topping, so I mixed some sugar, coconut flour, oil, salt, and grapefruit zest together and crumbled it over the tart.   The finished project was beautiful:

Wheat free and scrumptious

A closer look:

Just an ordinary Tuesday breakfast...

Here is a slice right before I devoured the poor thing:

Can't lie... I ate two pieces.

Verdict?  It was fricken delicious.   However, when I make it next time, I think I’ll increase the amount of fruit, and put less crumble on the top.  There is an awful lot of crust and crumble, and not enough fruit and custard to balance it out.  In the meantime, I’m going to make a strawberry sauce to serve with the tart to balance things.  Honestly, it’s delicious even without the sauce.

And that is breakfast my way.

A friend of mine just turned 21 and although she requested chocolate cupcakes with latté frosting, I felt like a more boozy cupcake would be more appropriate for the day.   I happened across a recipe for Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes on Confessions of a Tart, (who apparently got it from Smitten Kitchen) and had no choice but to make it.  For those of you unfamiliar with the drink, this is what Wikipedia has to say on the matter:

An Irish Car Bomb is a beer cocktail similar to a boilermaker made with Irish stout, Irish Cream, and Irish whiskey.

The name refers to the drink’s Irish ingredients – typically Guinness stout, Baileys Irish Cream, andJameson Irish Whiskey – and the car bombings notoriously used by the Provisional Irish Republican Army(PIRA) during the Troubles. The whiskey is floated on top of the Irish Cream in a shot glass, and the shot glass is then dropped into the stout. Once mixed, the drink must be consumed quickly because it will curdle.

However, the name is considered offensive to some bartenders (and rightly so), and thus they refuse to serve it.   Probably the same rational behind why the Confessions of a Tart girl referred to her cupcakes as “Guinness Cupcakes with Bailey’s Frosting.”

Anywho, I’m thinking of it as the marriage of cupcake and beer.

You may now kiss the cupcake.

You see, the Guinness groom is wearing the bow-tie, and the cupcake bride is wearing the garter.   Now, you may be wondering why I have a sparkly green polka dotted bow tie, or even a green garter…  well, I like to be prepared for St. Patrick’s day.  Come to think of it, perhaps I should have saved this post for then… too bad the birthday girl couldn’t have had her birthday on the blessed day of green, eh?

Here is my veganized version of the recipe:

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes
Makes 20 to 24 cupcakes

For the Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes

• 1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
• 1 cup (2 sticks) non-hydrogenated vegan margarine
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon oil
• 1/3 cup soymilk
• 2/3 cup soy sour cream (or yogurt)

Ganache Filling

• 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
• 1/2 cup soymilk (use 2/3 cups soy cream if you can find it)
• 2 tablespoons non-hydrogenated margarine, room temperature
• 1 to 2 teaspoons Irish whiskey (optional)

Baileys Frosting

• 3 to 4 cups confections sugar
• 1 stick (1/2 cup or 4 ounces) non-hydrogenated margarine, at room temperature
• 3 to 4 tablespoons “Baileys”

Make the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners.

Put the margarine with the beer in a sauce pan over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Whisk in cocoa powder until smooth. Cool slightly.

*For the margarine, I use Earth Balance sticks.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In a mixer bowl, beat the oil, soy milk, and the sour cream together. Add the beer/butter/cocoa mixture and beat to combine. Add the flour mixture and beat briefly just to combine. Using a rubber spatula, fold the batter until completely combined, making sure to incorporate little pockets of flour on the bottom so that the batter is of equal consistency everywhere.

*At this point I found my cake batter to be too thick (like a muffin), so I added more soymilk a tablespoon at a time until it was a more cakey consistency.

Fill the cupcake liners about 2/3 of the way if you want flatter cupcakes and 3/4 if you want domed. Bake for about 17 minutes, or until a toothpick or a slim knife inserted into the middle of a cupcake comes out clean. Cool completely to room temperature.

Make the filling: Chop the chocolate and transfer it to a heatproof bowl. Heat the soymilk until simmering and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for one minute and then stir until smooth. Add the margarine and whiskey (if you’re using it) and stir until combined.

chopping chocolate!

Chocolate chopped!

Fill the cupcakes: Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped. Using your 1-inch round cookie cutter or an apple corer, cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes. I went about half to 2/3 of the way down and used a small knife to help me extract the centers. Put the ganache into a piping bag with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.

*Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a 1-inch round cookie cutter.  It was a surprise given my hundreds of cookie cutters…  but ladies and gents, I’m a smart and resourceful girl, and I used what I did have… a coupler!

Couplers! Good for piping cake decorations, and cutting holes in cupcakes.

If you’re not familiar with couplers, they’re the little doo-dads you put in decorating bags before you fill them with frosting and add the tip… if that makes things any clearer.  Anyhow, I realized it was about an inch wide, so I just pushed my trusty coupler into the cupcakes, and behold! Lovely holes:

Waiting to be filled with whiskey ganache.

After filling the cupcakes with ganache you must:

Make the frosting: In a large mixer bowl, whip the margarine for a second and then add the powdered sugar, until it’s stiff.  Now, this is the fun part.   Bailey’s is not vegan of course.  From Wikipedia:

Baileys was the first 44% liqueur to use cream and alcohol together in a manner sufficiently stable to allow commercial distribution. The alcohol in Baileys is produced from a bacterial fermentation of whey. The cream and alcohol, together with some whiskey are homogenized to form an emulsion, with the aid of an emulsifier containing refined vegetable oil. This process prevents separation of the whiskey and cream during storage. The quantity of other ingredients is not known but they include chocolate, vanilla, caramel and sugar.

So, since Bailey’s is basically cream and whiskey, what I did was simply alternate adding a tablespoon of whiskey and a tablespoon of soymilk to the frosting until it reached the proper consistency and taste.  Soy cream might provide a better consistency, but it’s difficult to find in these parts.

And then, my lovely cupcakes were ready to boogey down!

Cupcake and Beer, together at last!

As you can see, the bride traded in her garter for some groovy glasses.  Looks good, eh?  Want a close-up?

Ballin'

Ohhh, you wanted a close-up of the cupcake, not the glasses…

Rocking the do

I saved some of my chocolate from earlier and sprinkled it on top of the lovely cupcakes.  Delicious huh?  Seriously… it was delicious.  I ate one.   Yummmmm.

And I didn’t want to just completely ignore the birthday girl’s requests, so I took some normal non-guinness chocolate cupcakes, filled them with whiskey ganache, and topped them off with what I’m calling, “Irish Coffee Frosting.”   I recently discovered that Irish Coffee is simply coffee and whiskey… so I bet you can guess what was in the frosting.   Basically, I’ve come to the conclusion that when describing edible or drinkable products, “Irish” just means “boozy.”

Happy Birthday, Eve!

I got so tired during Valentine’s Day last week, that I fell asleep and forgot to post these little cuties:

Love is chocolate and sprinkles

 They’re heart shaped!  See?

They’re basically cake balls, that I pressed into heart cookie cutters and then froze….  except they’re not really cake balls because, in place of some of the frosting, I added a healthy dose of raspberry.  They are moist and chocolatey and raspberry and so delicious.  See the insides?

Don't lie. You want it.

I sprinkled the sprinkles on while the chocolate was still melty.   They were easy to do… I mean maybe they would have held their shapes better if it weren’t for the jam, but the jam just made them sooo delicious.  Worth it.   They’re cute enough as is, and they taste out of this world.  Basically, just get some cake (preferably some moist, delicious, dark chocolate cake), throw it into your Kitchenaid Mixer (or break it up with a fork, or even the force), and then mix in frosting and jam until it tastes right and sticks together.   Voila!   Yum.  

I love holidays.  I love any excuse to decorate, wear tacky holiday earrings, and make sugar cookies!    I especially love Valentine’s Day because hearts are just so cute.

Cooooooooooookies

Aren’t they adorable?  They’re tasty, too.   These were an order…. see how cute they are in the box?

Aww

I also had an order for a cake.  A chocolate cake with raspberry filling:

Rockin the Raspberry

I’m extremely tired so I’m just going to let these pictures do the talking.

hearts!

Lucky Sammy

I love using fudge frosting because it tastes sooo good, but it’s just impossible to get smooth.  That’s fudge for you.

So, I don’t have a tripod… or even a very good camera.  I have an old Canon Powershot, but I try to push it to its limits.   And, due to my lack of tripod, I end up doing ghetto things like stacking up jars and candles and mugs … and once it’s high enough that I can get the picture from the angle I want, I hold the camera on top of the upper-most jar, and snap! Picture.

my jar-tripod... my ghetto-pod.

So, I’ve never been a person to get into the “Anti-Valentine’s Day” spirit… or the “Singles Awareness Day” spirit.   The point of Valentine’s Day is to celebrate the people you love and the relationships you’re lucky enough to have.  It doesn’t have to be a boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife or whatever.   I’m lucky to have a great family and great friends.   So, I made heart pancakes for my roommate and me!   Well, she gave me these absolutely adorable new measuring cups:

I love to measure.

So I had to use them!  I made strawberry-raspberry pancakes… and I replaced half the flour with whizzed up oats to make it healthier. (Not really sure if “whizzed” is a real word.  Whenever my mom puts something in the coffee grinder or food processor, she calls it whizzing. To whiz.  Because of the whizzing grinding sound.  Don’t know if that is a normal thing or not…)

Measuring cup in action!

Heart healthy pancakes!

Of course, the heart measuring cup doesn’t actually affect the shape of the pancakes at all… see?

sizzling happily

Sooooo, you might be wondering, how did they become heart shaped then?   Simple!

Step 1

Step 2

Don’t worry… I ate the scraps.

A hearty breakfast.

Cute… but something is missing.  Hrm.

Strawberries and pancakes, having a heart-to-heart.

Better…. but still something is missing.  Oh! I know!

CHOCOLATE!

Perfect.

True Love

Happy Valentine’s Day!

My friends, I love Duke. So so very much.  And I especially love our rivalry with UNC.   The thing about rivalries is that it feels really earth-shatteringly horrible when you lose, but it also feels like the dawn of a new paradisiacal universe when you win… and so the loss must be risked at least twice a season.  As long as that victorious paradise is a possibility, the loss must be risked.  And I’m just so very glad that I find myself on the paradise side of things this morning…. and my heart goes out to the Carolina fans.   Sorry, guys.  I know it hurts.  But really I’m not sorry.  Whoo!  Let’s go Duke!    

Mostly, I’m glad we won because otherwise how could I post these pictures of the cupcakes I made last night?

Victory... so delicious

I’m totally proud of these.  Well first of all, that orange took me a little bit of time.  I wanted it to be not a bright cartoony orange, but closer to the actual color of a basketball.  So… I added cocoa to the frosting to make it a little darker!   The cupcakes were a new recipe… I just wanted to try it out, and now that it has been tried, I’m returning to my mom’s chocolate cake recipe.   But they’re still good.  Just not the best ever.  Although, I did up the ante a bit by piping a thick chocolate pudding into the center of them.  Mmm.  I also used that pudding to pipe on the lines of the basketball.   

But, the real achievement is the royal icing transfers!   VEGAN royal icing transfers!   Sounds impossible right?  Well first, for those of you who don’t know what a royal icing transfer is, let me explain.  Royal icing is made up of basically egg whites and sugar.  It hardens very quickly and it hardens to a shiny gloss, so it’s used for decorations very often… like on sugar cookies or wedding cakes.   It can also be used to make little toppers that actually stand up on top of a cake!   And that’s what I wanted.  I wanted little D’s standing up on my cupcakes.   

Edible D!

AND, I did it.   The thing about vegan royal icing is that there are no egg whites!  

Vegan Royal Icing:

3 tbsp water
2 tbsp egg replacer powder
1.5 -2 cups powdered sugar
1/8 tsp cream of tartar

After doing a lot of research I went with this recipe that I found here.  No idea why hers says 3 1/2 cups… maybe she meant three half cups?   Anyway, most of the recipes out there called for things like corn syrup, which would have kept my icing from hardening up the way I needed it to.  So, I went with the most basic royal icing recipe and substituted Ener-G Egg Replace for the meringue powder.  Beat the egg replacer and water until thick and frothy, mix in cream of tartar, and then add the sugar a half a cup at a time until it gets to the desired consistency. Then I drew a little D on a piece of paper and laid wax paper over that, and piped the D’s out. 

Royal blue! Get it? Because it's royal frosting....

I had some leftover frosting so I made a tray of random hearts and squiggles.  And good thing, too, because that extra tray allowed me to experiment and ultimately led to a successful cupcake experience.   You see, the next day, while the tops of the D’s and hearts and whatnot were hardened, the bottoms were still soft.   I got the idea to stick them in the oven at 200 degrees F for 5-10 minutes to dry them out.  But when I took the hearts and squiggles out of the oven, they just seemed like they’d melt if I poked them.  So, then I threw them in the freezer to cool them down… thinking that if I couldn’t use them like royal icing transfers, I could at least use them kind of like frozen buttercream transfers.  But when I took them out of the freezer, they were awesome.   I flipped over the wax paper and peeled it off their backs, and it was just… perfect.   Stiff and substantive.  Even after they came back to room temperature, they were perfect.   I thought maybe it was the freezer that did it, so I skipped the oven step with the D’s and just threw them straight into the freezer.. but no dice.   A few of the D’s just crumbled when I tried to take the wax paper off.  I even cut the paper so that each D was on it’s own little wax paper island… I thought that this would allow me more control as I peeled off the backs and would minimize bending or straining the others while I worked on one…  but nope.  Not really.  Crumbled.   So  I threw them in the oven for a few minutes and then into the freezer and…. voila!  

Happiness is a royal D.

I am so extremely happy with this.   I only attached sticks to 2 of them… since I wasn’t sure if they would be strong enough to stand up, I figured if it didn’t work well I could at least lie the rest down on top of the cupcakes.  Oh but they did work! They stood! They’re still standing!  My little royal icing D’s… standing proudly on their toothpicks.  The toothpicks were “glued” to D’s using more royal icing.  Although, now, I’ve discovered that what is typically the “back” of the royal icing is prettier and shinier… maybe it’s because it’s vegan or it has to do with the baking and freezing… I don’t know.  But I’m going to keep it in mind and always use the shiny side as my front.  

Can you see how the front D is shinier than the one standing up, or the heart in the background?   I love it.  

So now that I know how to do royal icing transfers… well…  I feel like I can do anything! It opens up a whole new world!  I’m excited for my future decorating.    Also, I really need cupcake liners.  These ones are totally ugly.   But I have them and so I feel like I need to use them up…. 

D-U-K-E! What the heck you come to see?  Duke cupcakes, little brother!

Before Christmas I had a request for a graduation cake.  I didn’t get a chance to get a picture of it but I just saw that my customer posted a picture of it on her blog!  Yay!  

Coffee House Cake

 It’s 3 layers of cake… one mocha, one chai, and one chocolate… with a vanilla-chai sort of buttercream… and decorated with truffles.   I’m dubbing it, the Coffee House Cake… and it makes me want to hop over to the nearest café and order a mocha, a chai, and a hot chocolate.  Mmm.   Thanks for posting this Amanda!

I’ve been on a cupcake kick lately.   In fact, I’m currently working on some basketball ones for the Duke-Carolina game tonight.  

So in the honor of cupcakes, I give you Terri “Cup Cake” O’Mason… and I’ll let her sing the praises of the little cakes.  As you can see, the album is marked, “Songs for Adults Only.”   

Man this guy is always eating.