A Gooey German Chocolate Cake

For a very special birthday!

This was the first German chocolate cake I had ever made, and I kinda didn't realize I couldn't frost the sides.. I think people usually use chocolate butter cream or something for that.... Whoops!

Anyhoo, it was delicious, I made one mini cake and four cupcakes. The recipe was from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, a book which has never let me down. The basic chocolate and vanilla cake recipes from this book are amazing, and thrill and amazing non-vegan people every time!

"Butter" Cream Roses- not nearly as easy as you would think...

I made a few smaller "practice" cakes to work on my icing technique- I am trying to teach myself how to make butter cream roses (of course mine are vegan...). They are soooo hard! I am determined to master the rose by the time I go back to school in a few weeks, we shall see if that happens. Here's hoping these photos serve as "before" pictures soon... I now understand why people charge hundreds of dollars for cakes!

Birthday Cake!

Here are some pics of the cake I made for my Grandpa Ted's 80th bday! I used the skills I learned in my cake decorating class last month. It didn't turn out exactly as I had hoped (there was a pastry bag mishap), but it was fun to make!

The cake was a basic yellow cake with mocha butter cream frosting, as per Grandpa Ted's request. I wish I could say we had leftovers today, but we don't, it was quickly devoured! One more victory on my quest to convince the world vegan deserts are every bit as yummy as "regular" ones!

I also made a backup pineapple upside down cake, because I was afraid the bday cake wouldn't feed everyone. Luckily there was enough for everyone, so there wasn't a need for the mushy pineapple cake. Next time I think I will make individual pineapple upside down cakes, they would probably bake more evenly...

Tell your friends! I need to start selling these puppies for money. Just kidding! Kind of...

Blueberry Coffee Cake Bars

This week for Craig's Kitchen, I baked coffee cake from my newest cookbook purchase, Vegan Brunch. Since I needed to include fruit from the local CSA, I added blueberries, which were delicious addition. I cut the cake up into bars, and walked them over this afternoon (in the rain!) to the church. I hope everyone enjoyed them!


Of course, I doubled the recipe, so I will be motivated to get up in the morning for the rest of the week knowing I have blueberry coffee cake waiting for me. Although, as you can see, most of it has already been devoured... Is wasn't all me, I swear!

Individual Peach Upside-Down Cakes

I have just started baking for Craig's Kitchen, a soup kitchen in my neighborhood that asks people to volunteer every week to make a desert for their Wednesday night dinner. Not only do I think what they are doing is awesome, but I have been having a lot of fun baking for others who could use a yummy desert. In the summer if you are baking you can swing by the church where the kitchen is housed and pick up fruit donated by a local CSA to bake with. Last week I made individual blueberry pies, and this week I made individual upside-down peach cakes. There were two extras so we are going to try them after dinner, just to make sure they are good (as Ina Garten would say)! ;-)

Cake Decorating

This past Wednesday I took a cake decorating class at The Brooklyn Kitchen. It was a lot of fun, although I was probably the worst (and messiest by far) person in the class. I learned a lot though! I need to practice my new skills, so I am going to have to create some cake projects for myself... Maybe I can just quit my job and make vegan wedding cakes? Or not. Anyhoo, here are pics of my final creation from the class.