C'est Macaron!

My good friend Stacey and I recently signed up to take a macaron class at Ganache in East London. Macarons are hot topic at the moment, but to be honest the only ones I've tried were during our trip to Paris last year and sadly, I don't remember overly wowed by them. Still, we were determined to master this delicate and intimidating French treat as they do look really cute and impressive. And of course, they are the namesake for our future bakery cafe! I was hesitant going in.. Whyyy did I insist on Googling 'macaron fails' before I went in..? Those images were burned into my brain. I was convinced it would be a culinary disaster.

Luckily, I was proved wrong. Very wrong. The class ran for about 3 hours and we were given step by step guidance and very helpful tips which I would never have received had I been winging it alone at home. I'm still not 100% converted to the ways of the macaron as the flavour is a bit too delicate for my liking, but I suppose I could tweak this if I get brave enough to try this again in my own kitchen.

Baking Up a Storm

In June last year, my friend Stacey and I went to a cupcake decorating class in Brighton. While I have by no means perfecting the art of piping, my decorating has gotten a lot better! Practice makes perfect, so even though Nat and I live alone, cupcakes are still baked by the dozen, giant bags of icing sugar are ripped open with a flourish, chocolate is melted and turned into ganache, piping bags are filled and icing flows through my fast growing collection of plastic and metal icing tips.

Vegan chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Vegan chocolate raspberry blackout cake with raspberry icing and chocolate ganache

Carrot cupcakes with cream cheese icing

Coffee cupcakes with chocolate and coffee icing

Banana cupcakes with banana icing, chocolate and dried bananas

Baking for Halloween: Vegan chocolate cupcakes with coconut icing

Vegan Speculoos cupcakes

Mojito Cupcakes

Okay so admittedly these are not the prettiest cupcakes, and you will be hard pressed to find these appearing in Donna Hay anytime soon. But you know what, I don't care! So what if I can't pipe icing? These are the first things I have baked since leaving New Zealand, so I am pretty stoked.

Yesterday, while on the way to the supermarket I got a voice message from one of my recruiters saying she had a temp job for me starting next Monday. Seeing as I have been jobless for a month I prematurely bought a bottle of rum to celebrate.. and knowing my luck, by the time I called her back, the job was gone. So now I had this bottle of rum and nothing to celebrate. CURSES! So I decided to bake mojito cupcakes using this recipe, whose cupcake are far more photogenic than mine. The icing I made up, I don't tend to measure these thing out, but basically it was icing sugar, a lot of rum, peppermint essence and lime juice. So while they didn't look fantastic, they sure tasted it!

When in doubt, bake

Vegan Cherry Chocolate Cake

Recipe from Sinfully Vegan with maple chocolate frosting, chocolate heart decorations I made by melting chocolate and drizzling onto baking paper, and creme de cassis soaked cherries.

Cheesecake with Oreo Crust (non-vegan)

Recipe my friend Amanda sent me when I was bored at work and daydreaming about cheesecake. Too much dairy for this little lady (and my dad) so it won't be on my playlist again, blergh. Plus I cried when the bloody cake tin popped open post-filling pour, thus creating an unsightly mess.

Vegan Low-Fat Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes

From Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World!