Vegan MoFo Day 23: Chocolate Confetti

In my latest order of vegan goodies (mostly makeup) from Veganstore online, I included some Soydairy Dandies marshmallows. I ate about an eighth of the package, and then thought “what can I do with the rest?” They were more delicious and fluffier than non-vegan marshmallows, but I didn’t want to just slowly eat the whole bag, I wanted to do something with them. So I looked through my trusty Company’s Coming: 150 Delicious Squares (which should be called 150 Recipes for Insanely Sweet Yet Addictive Candy) and found the recipe for “Chocolate Confetti.” It should be called “Chocolate Cocaine,” based on how addicted I got to it until I’d eaten the whole pan in short order, but I suppose the “Company’s Coming” cookbooks are pretty invested in a certain heteronormative family-friendliness.

Chocolate Confetti (veganized)
1/4 c. Earth Balance
1/2 c. peanut butter (I used Maranatha Organic)
1 c. chocolate chips (again, I went all fancy-pants and used organic dark chips)
250 g. Dandies marshmallows, cut in half (a package is 283 g., so you can eat some first)

Mix EB and peanut butter in a saucepan over heat until melted together. Take off heat and stir in chocolate chips until melted. Cool until you can hold your hand comfortably on the bottom of the pan. Add marshmallows and stir until they’re all coated. Spread evenly in a 9×9 pan that has been lined with tinfoil for easy removal and cutting. Refrigerate until firm, cut into squares, and keep in the freezer, keeping in mind that this step is not really effective in keeping you from eating it constantly until it’s gone.

Marshmallows cut in half:

Vegan MoFo Day 11: Wedding Cake Construction!

Well, I really made this on the seventh, ninth, and tenth day of MoFo! But today I have the chance to post about it. Cathy and Scott got married in the summer, but we had a little potluck last night as a bit of a post-wedding party. Cathy asked for chocolate-raspberry, and Scott asked for lemon, so I made a dual-cake! This (scroll down) is where I got the cake recipe: I made two layers of lemon just like on the website, and a couple of days ahead I made a chocolate version and froze it. (I subbed 1/2 c. + 2 T. cocoa for the same amount of flour in the recipe, subbed a few tablespoons blackberry liqueur for the same amount of water, and omitted the lemon extract and zest, adding a teaspoon of raspberry latte syrup instead of the extract).
Here’s stage one: so far to go!

Here’s where it gets complicated: a border of the appropriate icing to hold in the respective fillings. The lemon side was filled with the lemon curd from the same link above, and the chocolate side was filled with some fresh raspberries mixed with strawberry spreadable fruit. The icings? I winged it: equal parts Crisco and Earth Balance, plus a bunch of icing sugar and a tiny bit of Dr. Oetker “Whip It” stabilizer. Raspberry version: raspberry latte syrup and a touch of lemon juice added. Lemon version: lemon juice!

This next part is Advanced Cake Spackling. See the chocolate layer is really in pieces placed together?

Now, we have to be careful here: if we don’t spackle a bit, we’ll get jammy filling filtering down and oozing out the sides, which is the bane of my cake-making life. So, the cracks get a bit of mortaring.

Here’s a sideview- I fought hard with the crumb coat on the sides to make sure no filling oozed out. And I was more successful than I have been in the past! This pleased me.

Here’s Cathy and Scott and their son, Elliott!

The decorations were made with marzipan, yum!

Vegan Mofo Day 4: Spicy Chocolate Cake

Now, this is one of my favourite cake creations. I used the chocolate variation of the Genoise cake from Nonna’s Italian Kitchen, made twice (four layers), adding a teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon (or was it 1/4?) cayenne pepper, and a few tablespoons of brandy and a 1/3 of a cup of cold coffee to replace some of the water. The first two layers wouldn’t come out of the pans for love nor money, and ended up coming in many pieces that I had to spackle together. I had better luck with the next two layers, which I lined with greased and floured wax paper. Now, for the filling I wanted something not too sweet, so I made the Cashew Mascarpone from Nonna’s Italian Kitchen (just blended cashews/lemon juice/silken tofu) with cinnamon and two tablespoons icing sugar added to make Cinnamon Mascarpone! Then for the icing I just made plain buttercream with almond extract. But the red icing also had cinnamon. So a bit of an eccentric cake, but a hit nonetheless.

Sunny Blueberry Muffins

Sunny Blueberry Muffins from Vegan With a Vengeance! More entries soon, I promise. I’m out of town, but there’s some in the queue that I can do from afar!

LifeThyme Groceries, NYC

LifeThyme is a great health food store in Greenwich Village that had a whole vegan bakery counter in the back! We were very happy with this slice of pineapple upside down cake.

Cathy and Alyson’s Birthday Cake

Here we have another birthday cake. The lined design on the top and sides is thanks to my handy Wilton cake comb, which is just a plastic triangle with crimped edges. The cake was a chocolate cake based on this one, with some blackcurrant liqueur replacing some of the liquid. The icing used Tofutti cream cheese, shortening, and raspberry latte syrup. I’m so sick of frostings that don’t set up properly– this time the culprit was the cream cheese (a repeat offender) and the raspberry syrup. Strawberry jam in the middle!

Apple Pie!

Plain ol’ apple pie from the Farm Journal Complete Pie Cookbook. People ask me more questions about veganising pie than any other dessert. Which is ironic and fun, because if you’re a shortening-crust person, like I and the Farm Journal Complete Pie Cook are, then apple pie’s already vegan. Yes, already vegan in 1965.

Mom’s Birthday Cookies

It’s not fun living across the country from my mom in May, when it’s both Mother’s Day and her birthday. So for her birthday I couriered her some cookies, in fancy living-beyond-my-means style! I used this recipe from the Post Punk Kitchen, adding a 1/4 c. each of vegan chocolate chips, vegan white chocolate chips, and chopped macadamia nuts. Very successful cookies, even in spite of forgetting to add the vanilla!

Elliott’s First Birthday Cake!

When Elliott was born, I made a deal with his mom Cathy that I’d be making his first birthday cake. It seemed like it would be ages away at the time! The theme was Mad Hatter and strawberries. I actually forgot that these were the formal themes, but with fairly dumb luck (or the aid of my subconscious) decorated the cake properly. The cake was the vanilla cake from here (well, actually the version from Papa Tofu that uses 3 c. of flour and 2/3 c. oil and 2 t. vanilla.) I made a full batch of batter into two smaller layers, and then an extra half batch to make the larger bottom layer. Between the layers I spread organic strawberry jam, and the icing was my usual wing-it: Crisco, Earth Balance, icing sugar, vanilla, bit of water. Lately I’ve been adding a sprinkling of this Dr. Oetker “Whip It” powder that’s meant to stabilize whipped cream. I think it helps icing set up better, especially when you’re adding water (I wanted the cake to be fairly soy-free this time). The strawberry was made with part of the icing that I coloured and flavoured with raspberry latte syrup. Hooray for Elliott!

Housewarming Cake

Terra and Mike and Ella just moved into a new apartment, so I made a cake for the housewarming. I wanted to try out a decorating aesthetic that was spare, humble, and somewhat mid-twentieth-century.
The cake itself is a lemon genoise cake from Bryanna Clark Grogan’s website; the post is here (it doesn’t look like it: scroll down). For the filling I used the lemon curd from the same post (I’ve made this a couple of times and am very pleased with it!) combined with blueberries. For the frosting, I winged it, as usual, making a cream cheese-style icing. I added soy milk powder for stability because I find Tofutti cream cheese produces quite a runny icing, but I think I added a bit too much this time, because I found the finished product too tacky and clay-like in texture. But no one else seemed to mind. A small quibble, a tasty cake.