Cupcakes Take Over The Holidays!

For Christmas, I received the cookbook "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World" from my fiance and all the baking tools needed to get started with my world conquests.After much drooling, my mom and I settled on red velvet with velveteen frosting and cookies and cream cupcakes for the inaugural adventure. Now, mind you, I've eaten plenty of tasty (and a few not so tasty) vegan cupcakes before, so I wasn't too afraid of the results. BTW, the chocolate with peanut butter frosting vegan cupcakes at Seward Coop in Minneapolis are DIVINE and Cupcake needs to expand its current 1 vegan offering (chocolate/chocolate) and have them in stock! Maybe I can inspire Cupcake with a photo of my inaugural vegan cupcake conquest. I introduce you to Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World's Cookies and Cream Cupcake (nom!):

The cupcakes were easy to make and the frosting was best a little chilled, but close to room temperature. I really don't like buttercream frosting (it feels and tastes a little too much like eating butter straight from the dish), but the vegan buttercream with my slight hand with the powdered sugar was just the right touch for the cupcakes in my opinion. Oh no, there is an army of vegan velvet cupcakes forming.....

If you like cupcakes, you will love "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World."

Disaster's a Dish Best Not Served

I am not going to lie. Sometimes, despite your best efforts, the vegan alternative just doesn't cut it. Case in point: my first attempt at vegan quiche. I was trying to come to terms with my fiance's decision to go vegan and my friends apprehension about vegan foods. I am open having known people who chose an animal product free life for decades, so I decided to host a brunch with vegan food that would please everyone. I should have gone the route of the tofu scramble that rolled in a tortilla with guacamole or salsa is mouthwatering, but I like to get fancy sometimes. So, for reasons unknown, I decided I'd make a vegan quiche.

It was a lot of work, but the end product looked great (I cheated and used a pre-made vegan whole wheat crust Whole Foods sells.) The ingredients were mouthwatering....pine nuts, red peppers, mushrooms, scallions.) I was a little nervous after I tried a small slice of the Follow Your Heart Vegan Mozarella because it was sour and not very appetizing, but I held my head high. It wasn't until we cut into it that my heart sank. The consistency was off...part pudding, part curdled. Nothing like the photo from the recipe. In hindsight, I probably didn't use the right type of tofu and not enough cornstarch or arrowroot powder. I was (or rather am) new to vegan cooking and you're going to have failures. Maybe I shouldn't have served a new recipe with ingredients I wasn't comfortable with to my unsuspecting brunch guests. Or maybe we should just do what we did ... laugh over the mimosas and gnosh on the other food.