Vegan Baking Explorations

This past weekend was the weekend of baking blunders and victories. My friend Amanda's Lady Gaga themed birthday part was on Saturday and I wanted to bake her a vegan cake that was splendiferiously Gaga inspired.

My plan was to bake a 6 layered cake, each layer a color of the rainbow, layer orange cream between the layers, cover the cake with fondant and create either a Gaga crown or a roller derby skate from gum paste for the top (Amanda's a Maine Roller Derby Girl with the Port Authorities- go check them out!). That was my plan.

However, plans can go awry. Although I've changed to a vegan diet for the new year (check out my other blog, The Vegan Explorer), I haven't quite gotten a full handle on vegan baking yet. I started baking at 9:30am on Saturday - first mistake, waiting until the day the cake is due. The first cake was a total disaster. It didn't rise well, it formed a strange hard sugary crust, and tasted awful! EW! I fed it to the trashcan after attempting to fix it twice.

Push the clock forward to noon. I start debating, do I stick to my vision and try again or do I make my no-fail Vegan Italian Polenta Cake instead? It was a toughie. I decided to go for it again, I'm no quitter! So I reformulated my recipe and started over. The layers were thin and a little bit sticky, but tasted great so I kept going. Fast forward to 4:30 pm. All of the layers are completed and cooled, time to start stacking and create my vegan orange butter cream. Ut oh, here comes trouble. How do you make "butter" cream without butter?? Well, the first attempt was a disaster. Somehow it started separating and just looked gross. The second version was a little better but not perfect...though I used it because I was running out of time.

Rather than take the time to roll out fondant for a cake that was already sort of uneven and time was running short (it was already 6:30), I made a vegan vanilla icing (thanks to the help of one of my boyfriend's cookbooks) and my boyfriend helped with icing the outside of the cake. He did a beautiful job of evening out the cake.

Still, I was totally deflated. I didn't think this cake would taste good and I just wasn't happy with the quality - it was not my usual highly polished work. My boyfriend convinced me not to pitch it into the trash and we left for the party. I'm really grateful that he got me to bring it because it seemed to be a big hit! Amanda and her friends appeared to love it and dubbed the cake "Gayke" - love it.

The Gayke!
Photo by Justin Lewis, filmaperture Photography

The Gayke's rainbowy layers!

Photo by Justin Lewis, filmaperture Photography 

On Sunday, my boyfriend and I had our second annual Hot Chocolatey Crafty Night and I thought I'd bake my Polenta Cake. I made the cake, which turned out beautifully, but when I went to make the glaze (a recipe I made without really writing down what I did...a no no for me!) it came out horribly. I went through three versions until I got something I was mildly happy with but for some reason it did not come out the same way it had the first time (and I ended up scalding myself with boiling hot marmalade in the process and am now donning two blisters on my face and one on my finger - boyfriend medic to the rescue!). I still need to figure out what happened  - yes it was still good, but it was not the same glaze I'd made a few weeks before. Gah! Frustrations!

And through all this frustration, my boyfriend stuck by my side. He was incredibly supportive, encouraging, made me laugh, pitched in to help, played doctor to my wounds, and helped me realize that it really is okay to mess up sometimes. I don't have to be perfect and I can learn through making mistakes. He certainly is a good guy :)

Sugar Cookie Madness

And oh yes, they have driven me mad! I've recently decided to professionalize my sugar cookie decorating by switching to royal icing. The icing I was using before was just a simple icing made with confectioners sugar, corn syrup, and vanilla. The stuff isn't very versitile though and it doesn't harden quite as much as royal icing (which is akin to rubber cement).

So- of course I jumped online for tips and I must tell you, the ultimate online teacher has got to be Sweetopia. Her tutorials and tips are incredibly helpful and she truly helped me get on my feet! Don't get me wrong, it was still hard to learn how to use royal icing, and I've nowhere near perfected the process, but her website got me started and I recommend you check it out if you have any interest in cookie decorating.

I've upgraded my cookie decorating tools, going from ziplock bags with varying sized cuts made in the corner, to Wilton's piping bags and tips. GOOD move. It is SO much easier to decorate with tips; I can't believe I did it any other way, but at the same time I'm pretty proud of what I was able to accomplish without them! I'm still learning how to control the flow and I don't have a Kopykake projector like the Sweetopia blogger so I need to perfect my free-hand skills or find a cheapie overhead projector somewhere- good luck.

I recently had an order for 45 baby-themed cookies for a shower and although they turned out really nice it was really stressful- one of those if-anything-can-go-wrong-it-will kind of orders, you know, I lose half a batch of cookies to the floor, underestimate the amount of confectioners sugar the order will take, realize I'm out of the correct sized cellophane bags and have to make an emergancy run to Target, and the cost to create them, not including the hours and hours they took, pretty much cancelled out how much I earned. Phew! It was tiring, but really good practice and I'm proud of the outcome. I'm not diving into any more cookie decorating anytime soon (I say that, yet I've got snowflake decorated gingerbread cookies on my Christmas cookie list, so, yeah...).

Freshly baked sugar cookies!

Icing! Icing! Icing!



Duckies and Elephants, Oh My!

Speaking of Christmas cookies- I've got about a week or so break and then it's back at it! I'm making 6 different types of cookies and shipping them all over the country to family and friends! Reports and photos to follow, I promise :)

Stay warm and have a happy Thanksgiving!

Follow-up to The Bully Premier

I had a blast at The Bully premier on Wednesday, October 20th at SPACE Gallery. The night started with a performance by local band South China (check them out if you have yet to hear them- they are just incredible) and then filmmakers Derek Kimball and Matt Konkel of Last House Productions premiered "The Bully" followed by a showing of their film "I Want You to Know." The turnout for the event was fantastic- I'd say at least 100 people showed up.

The night before the premier I sat in my kitchen for three hours painting sugar cookies with scenes based off the film's promotional poster.





It was exhausting, but they came out much better than I expected and my boyfriend was flitting around them all night with "ooooo's" and "ahhhh's." I packaged them up in cellophane bags tied with black ribbon.

There were 14 in all and I almost sold out :) In addition, I whipped up a batch of Ginger Cookies and Mud Puddle Cookies. I packaged them in 3's and sold quite a few, though it seemed like the Mud Puddle's were most popular. No wonder- they're covered in dark chocolate ganache! Everyone who bought from me was sure to come back multiple times to tell me how good the cookies were. This is the first "event" I've ever sold merchandise at and I'd say it was a big success! In all I raised $25 to support getting the film into the international film festival circuit.



I'd really love to do another event like this again- just have to keep my eyes open for opportunities. Since the event, I've had 2 orders placed and two more pending ones, so I've got a big baking week coming up!

The Bully Premiere

I hope everyone is planning to attend the premiere of local filmaker Derek Kimball's new film, "The Bully" on October 20th at SPACE Gallery. The teaser for the film looks incredible, and based on Kimball's previous work, this is sure to be an event you don't want to miss!

In addition to the film viewing, Kimball's film "I Want You To Know" will serve as a prelude to the premiere and two local bands are slated to perform. All of the proceeds from the night will benefit getting the film into the international film festival circuit, and so I'm happy to say that I'll be selling film-inspired cookies at the premiere with 60% of the proceeds going to the cause!

I'm planning to make large sugar cookies painted with various images from the film's promotional poster as well as some other flavors. I'd love to come up with a "Bully" cookie too!

I've been a bit bummed lately as sales have been slim to none. I've realized I need to find a way to advertise myself to more people but haven't come up with a plan yet. I had hoped that word of mouth through friends would work- but it's not really drumming up much business for me. We are approaching gifting/family dinner season though, so maybe something will pan out. If anyone has any other ideas for me, I'm all ears!