Oh baby, Babycakes

Babycakes is renowned. RENOWNED, BABY. And I was there. I dragged my friend across New York City while we were on vacation and freaked the hell out. I bought two cupcakes and a sandwich cookie. And then I went to Moo Shoes and bought two pais of gorgeous vegan pumps. BOO-YEAH.

Pumpkin spiiiiiice

 

Another day, another cupake! I went to Fresh today on a whim with a friend--I didn't even know she liked the place! She was ecstatic to go--she apparently has an ongoing love affair with the raw zucchini 'pasta' bowl. I ordered delicous carrot, coconut milk and lime soup-of-the-day with cornbread on the side; and also quinoa onion rings (which my friend agreed are The Best Thing) and they we got dessert. Of course! The cupcakes available--for autumn, presumably--were Pumpkin Spice! I don't like pumpkin enough to make a whole batch of cupcakes, even if I only end up eating a handful myself. But I'll order a pumpkin cupcake while I"m out. So I did! It was delicious--the icing was perfect. And I told my friend that I make awesome choclate-raspbarry cupcakes, and I have promised her baking lessons sometime in the future. Yay Pumpkin Spiiiiice!

Convince them with baked goods

Baked goods are the thing that omnivores don't get. They understand beans; they understand tofu, even if they don't like it; the totally understand healthy benefits of eating more veggies. But whenever I talk to people about cupcakes, cookies, banana bread--even waffles--they ask, "But what about eggs?" In people's minds, everything with flour requires eggs. Or it will fall apart. EMERGENCY! THE VEGANZ BAKED GOODZ WILL FALL APART!!

Ahem. They won't. Cupcakes, cookies, banana bread and even my beloved waffles stick together fine--just various combinations of flour, liquid, oil, sugar and baking powder and baking soda. The only thing I can recall needing something to bind it is biscotti. I think it's because it's a much drier recipe--only 1/2 cup or liquid to 1 1/2 cups flour. And then, 2 tablespoons of flax seed beaten with water save the day.
And vegan baked goods surprise the hell of out people. I make lovely layered cupcakes, like the lemon-blueberry babies pictured (recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take over the world), and people can't figure out how vegan baked goods can be so scrumptious. I think once, a long time ago, someone made cookies with hemp seed and granola and kale and dried seaweed and fed them a thousand or so people and forever cemented in the public consciousness that vegan baked goods are gross. But no--I promise you, I don't eat things that aren't delicious. So I convince them with baked goods!
Convince them with cupcakes like these, by making lemon cupcakes, lemon icing and blueberry sauce. When the cupcakes have cooled to the touch, use a spoon or small knife to cut a piece out of the top of each cupcake. Pipe or spread in some icing, spoon in a little sauce, and replace the piece. Add some more icing and sauce and top, and serve within a couple hours so the sauce doesn't disintegrate the cupcakes. And they will be convinced.

Delicous, delicious bookclub

Rice crackers.

I had my bookclub today. It was great! Everything was delicious! And the book was pretty good too.
In my bookclub, we have me, the vegan, someonewith celiac, a pescetarian, and 2 very supportive omnivores without any food allergies. So bookclub is often vegan/gluten-free bookclub. For some reason I found today especially delicious--maybe because I could eat almost everything we had today; or maybe because we started this cold day off with a hot comforting bowl of chilli; maybe because our designated non-cook made absolutely delicious vegan and gluten-free cupcakes. Maybe it was because I had two cupcakes--who knows?
I took a ton of pictures. Yay vegan/gluten-free food porn!

Guacamole. It's always delicious.

Super-garlic pickles that the hostess got at the farmers' market.

Fan-freakin'-tasic cupcakes.

Vegan and gluten-free English muffins, for bruschetta.

Bruschetta. Nom.

Hot, comforting chilli.

Cashew-cheese stuffed figs, drizzled with maple syrup.

Vegan Mofo

Yay! VeganMoFo is finally here. For the uninitiated, that's a month in which blogs (and now Tweets too) dedicated themselves to posting about vegan food. (More info and to sign up here.)

My first VeganMoFo post will be about cupcakes. Ah, cupcakes, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways... Cupcakes are single-serving size, versatile, and abounding with cuteness. I bring cupcakes to bookclub, to work, and to the gym (yes, the gym) and they make people sooo happy. A colleague today was almost giddy with delight when I offered her a cupcake; my bookclub friends were a little overwhelmed when I provided two kinds of cupcakes (chocolate mint and chocolate orange); and my trainer gobbles up my cupcakes so fast that one of his other clients asked where I got the recipe.

Being vegan, one has two choices: eat whatever ready-made vegan food you can find; or cook. I live in the biggest city in Canada, and I list on two hands the vegan food choices within walking distance of my workplace. Living outside the core of the city means the options near my home are far, far fewer. And when it comes to dessert, vegan treats are as scarce as rednecks doing downward dog. There are exactly two vegan dessert choices near work. So, I cook. And I make cupcakes.

I wasn't really a baker before I went vegan: I didn't really have a sweet tooth. However, going vegan happened to coincide with my year-long weight-loss journey--during which I realized that the salty, crunchy snacks I so loved completely decimate my willpower. If I buy a bag of chips, it disappears before you can say "just one portion." So I tried to eat them less. And then after going vegan and realizing how scarce vegan desserts were, I began to crave them. Human nature is a funny thing: we always want what we can't have!

So I bought Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World, by vegan cookbook author extraordinaire and founder of VeganMoFo, Isa Chandra Moskowitz. It's fantastic. I've made a dozen cupcakes almost every week since I bought it. Since I really shouldn't eat 12 cupcakes before they turn into little iced hockey pucks (ooooooh! cupcake pun--you love it), I save 4 or 5 for myself and give the rest away.

This week I skimmed the cookbook, searching for I recipe that I hadn't made before but for which I had the ingredients. It was a success: I discovered peanut butter cupcakes. My co-workers and my spin instructor were happy to help me eat the dozen!