Saturday, June 20, 2009

Vegan baking!

Today was so exciting!! I went to the library and found Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World!


After reading such great reviews about the cupcakes and seeing pictures on blogs, I knew I had to try them. To be honest, I'm not much of a baker. I prefer to cook. I also make a HUGE mess when I bake, I don't what it is! But this was an event for me. I decided I would follow the recipes to the 'T' with ingredients and directions, so I had to do some shopping!
Also, I figured since Father's day was coming up, this would make a great gift for my step-dad (pretty much just another reason and excuse to spend $$ on expensive ingredients and eat dessert)!!
I purchased some cooling racks from the dollar store (booya) and cupcake liners (also towels and goggles for the pool, but that's another story).

We needed to make a special extra trip to Nature's Finest for some non-hydrogenated shortening since my stupid Publix only had the crap kind.
Although baking is a lot of time and effort, I like it! It is kind of therapeutic because it gets your mind off things while you're concentrating on the recipe.

I baked the "golden vanilla" and "your basic chocolate cupcake," both with the Vegan fluffy buttercream frosting. I had planned on the chocolate buttercream frosting too, but I was too exhausted by then!
















In between cooling the cupcakes, we had to drive across town to pick up my suit from the dry cleaners. We got lunch:



And then we proceeded with the decorating!! Mirza's Mom bought me a pastry bag kit filled with a bunch of different shaped tips for Christmas, so I finally got a chance to use it. It was my first time doing ANYTHING like this. In fact, I think this was my first time baking cupcakes, except for the carrot cake cupcakes last fall. I need more practice!! Either way, it was a lot of fun...

Even Mirza helped!





(Those were the ones we put in a container for Jerry)

How did they taste??

Freakin' amazing! I was surpised by how moist they were on the inside, just great!! I really love them and I feel proud and accomplished that today I baked and decorated 24 desserts with no animal products. And it tastes so good!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We brought them over my mom's and found Minnie sound asleep:



And then we went out for some pizza!! Hey, it is okay to indulge after all that hard work, right? hehe.





The day ended with a night swim and pretty much how it began: with cupcakes!


Mirza: "Don't ever make that face again..." :)



Isn't anyone else as messy as me when it comes to baking?? It seems impossible not to be! I wonder if it is easier if you just buy a bunch of those little bowls and measure everything out before beginning...I don't know...any ideas?

4 comments:

Miss Purple Stethoscope said...

Oh wow - they look AWESOME!! Yumm!! Wish I could try some :-D I'm very messy when I bake too but I think that's half the fun... the only downer is having to clean up afterwards :-S Great pics too by the way!

Oh She Glows said...

Oh wow GREAT job!!! They are so so cute!!!
I agree I was floored at how good vegan cupcakes taste (as are my customers too!).
PS- you are very pretty!! :)

april said...

haha I love that face!! And those cupcakes are so cute! Oh and a little tip for you.. email a bunch of companies and ask if they have any "samples" for you to review for your blog.. that's what I did and I keep getting all kinds of cool stuff! But shh keep it on the down low lol!

Lauren said...

WOW! Those cupcakes look amazing! I am a huge slob when it comes to baking, I am all out of sorts because I never do it! :)