Think Spring!

It's mid-April - I'm hearing birds chirp more, buds are starting to appear and I'm thinking spring. In excitement for the coming season that lasts a mere 2-3 weeks up here in Maine, I created a new cupcake called "Think Spring." It's a vegan lemon cupcake with berry filling, topped with vanilla icing, a blackberry and some lemon zest - and it is yummers!

These cupcakes were my first experimentation with a "filled" cupcake, which seems to be all the rage right now. I used a cupcake corer from Williams Sonoma, and I must say, if you want to fill your cupcakes, get a cupcake core; it makes the job so much easier and much less messier! They're only $5 and are nice and compact and easy to clean. 

Filled Think Spring cupcakes, pre frosting

So I baked up the Think Springs last Saturday with an upcoming cupcake job I'm doing for a friend's graduation party in mind. I've had a bunch of taste-testers and have heard that they're awesome and that they don't taste vegan. It's interesting that people always need to qualify food as "tasting vegan" or not "tasting vegan." Vegan just means there are no animal products in whatever the product is - it doesn't mean that the cupcake contains ingredients the majority of us aren't familiar with. I'm sure most of us have had margarine in some form, flax seed, flour, sugar, fruit juices, applesauce...all normal things, I promise :o) But when someone says, "This doesn't even taste vegan!" I take it as a compliment. I think that vegan baking got a bad wrap at some point because a lot of vegan bakers didn't understand the world of substitutions and the chemistry going on in our ovens, and so a lot of vegan baked goods came out tasting grainy, seedy, bland, or dry. This certainly does not describe what I've been baking up! 

You may have noticed from my other blog or the From Scratch and Sniff Facebook group that I recently got engaged. We got engaged a few weeks ago before the ring was actually ready. On Tuesday we got the call that the ring was ready, and after returning home, I was surprised with a second proposal. My fiance had been doing a photo-shoot with the Think Spring cupcakes and asked to borrow the ring so he could get a shot. He came up behind me in the kitchen with the ring sticking up out of the top of the cupcake, and proposed again. And of course, I said yes again! Then we shared the cupcake, after he put the ring back on my finger. It was perfection. 

In it for the long haul....

I had a discouraging realization this week. I've started developing a "business plan" for myself which had a few beginning steps:

1. Develop a strong menu of 10-15 items that are fully vegan.
2. Rename business, develop a new look/logo, and packaging.
3. Go through the steps to get my apartment kitchen licensed & products FDA approved.
4. Obtain business insurance.
5. Begin visiting local businesses to get product sold in various places around the city.
6. Eventually, rent out a commercial kitchen and start doing local and shipping orders.
7. Dream - open a store front.

My good friend Kelly found me an article posted on the Maine Organic Farmers & Gardeners (MOFG) website by Cheryl Wixson who does workshops on how to get your kitchen licensed. The article is called Licensing the Home Food Processor Kitchen and goes through a lot of the requirements needed to get your kitchen licensed. Unfortunately, after reading this, I realized I would need to literally re-model our kitchen....which is in a rented property. I don't have a 2-bay sink, no dishwasher, no screen door, no granite or steel counter tops, and the floor is probably less than desirable. Huge let down. I sat on the couch close to tears as I realized my plan was now wrinkled quite a bit. My incredibly supportive and generous fiance asked if we should move. He said we could try to remodel this kitchen ourselves. And then he told me we would do whatever it took to have my dream fulfilled. What an amazing guy - I am so lucky!

I don't think we should move yet; between the two of us, we've moved 6 times in the last 2 years and it's getting really old. We also love our apartment despite the kitchen's "flaws" and the fact that the bathroom is wicked narrow/tiny and only has a stall shower. We love the location, that we have a driveway, that it's fairly quiet, and that we have an incredibly sweet landlord who lives in the building.

So plan b: find a commercial kitchen now or just sit tight, be patient and wait. I found a local commercial kitchen which rents for $10/hour, but I'm not going to jump into it right now. I think I'm just going to work at perfecting my products and will call on friends and family to promote my business, name, and quality products to everyone they know. Word of mouth is a powerful thing and I think it can get me far. I have some incredibly supportive friends who will call me rather than buying a cake somewhere, who will taste-test and give me real feedback, and who help me brainstorm through problems like these! I'm also going to look into going to some MOFG conferences focused on kitchen licensing and businesses planning. It'll be a great way to gain some new ideas/skills and to meet some locals with similar goals.

In the kitchen, I've been fervently baking each week and perfecting many of my recipes. Yesterday I baked up some vegan Nom Nom Carrot Cake Cupcakes with faux maple cream cheese icing. I took a few with me to a bar to meet friends and they were certainly a hit!

Vegan Nom Nom Cupcakes, photo by Justin Lewis, filmaperture Photography

A friend has also asked me to do an event for her in May, so I'm really looking forward to working with her to develop some new flavors. I will probably experiment with a vegan lemon cupcake with berry compote filling, topped with vanilla bean frosting with candied lemon rind. Reminding myself that although there was a set back, it's minor in the grand scheme of things and I will still see this thing through!

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 :)

A very happy birthday to you!

My little brother turns 17 on Saturday- 17! I can't even believe it. Somehow, within the last 2 years the kid has sprouted into a 6'3, thin as a rail, bright and talented, almost-young adult. I invited him and my dad for dinner on Saturday night and of course I've got to come up with a fitting dessert for the occaision. I started listing out some of his favorite things and focused on Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Inspiration quickly followed. I made a test batch this past Saturday.

I started with a simple cupcake batter and added a healthy helping of local raw honey from the Portland farmer's market.





As the cupcakes baked and the sweet honey smell started filling my kitchen, I pulled out my mixer and created a fluffy peanut butter icing. I don't have a ton of icing experience, so this next comment may not be saying much, but it is definitely the best icing I've ever created. It's light and airy and oh, so peanut buttery.





After the cupcakes cooled, I made a bowl of dark chocolate ganache. I piped the icing on top of the cupcakes and then dipped the tops in ganache.



Good idea- but it wasn't thought through. Of course, the icing did not keep it's pretty, evenly distributed shape. It melted and deflated a bit. I don't have photos of the finished product because I was sorley disappointed with their appearance. Apparently taste trumps appearance, though. The reactions I received have convinced me to make them again. One of my tasters told me it was an "orgasm" in her mouth, another placed an order for her and her boyfriend.

I will make them again this weekend, but I'm going to modify it a bit and hopefully it will be more visually appealing and I'll be able to get some pictures for you. Fingers crossed! Either way, I know my almost-17-year-old brother will devour them. Happy Birthday, Keith!