Doesn't it look like the chocolate ribbons are all soft and melty? That's because they are. Our house is currently heated to precisely the chocolate melting point.
This week, I baked something almost every night, despite the heat and veganness. A while back, Jackie gave me the Best Titled Cookbook Ever, "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World," and I finally got around to breaking it in. Note: they have a blog!
We kind of have a remarkable pantry, considering I really don't cook or bake anything elaborate all that often. Dude, let me tell you. It is so nice to have a stocked pantry, and to look through recipes for something you like, not for something you have.
That said, we didn't have corn starch, so I couldn't make the golden cupcakes from the book. Chocolate it was! We also didn't have powdered sugar, so I made some vegan cream cheese frosting using maple sugar instead. Holy god, they are the best things I've ever baked. Ever. Including the blissfully ignorant days of eggs and butter. I have three left, remarkably, so hurry on over and get one.
The next night I made chocolate-orange-hazelnut cookies (too cakey and floppy, but still cookies, and that's all that matters) from either "Garden of Vegan" or "How it all Vegan," and some gingerbread from the same cookbook (ack! do not use blackstrap molasses!). Then the next night I made applesauce muffins, but used some random Harry and David pear butter we had open in the fridge. Those are perfect.
Which brings me to last night. Ah, last night. I made Chai Latte cupcakes from the cupcake dictatorship book. MAKE THESE NOW. The book suggests putting powdered sugar on top with a little cinnamon and cocoa, but I opted for a cinnamon icing instead, piped thinly on top. Mmmm. As I was licking the icing-piper bag thing clean, a drop of icing landed on my bare foot. I wiped if off with my finger and licked it, if that tells you how good that icing is.
The most important part of this story is that I cleaned the kitchen myself every time. Normally, with baking, crafts, decorating, home improvement, or actually anything vaguely resembling a project, I get bored with it just in time for clean-up, and the scraps, mess, and resultant tornado of supplies and mid-project snack plates lie dormant for days, hopefully until someone else gets too annoyed with the mess and deals with it himself. Maybe it's because I needed my mixing bowls and measuring spoons for the next night's continuation of the baking fiasco, or maybe I'm actually turning over a new leaf.
Who knows. I also put about 5 cookie's worth of batter in the fridge, waiting to make them "later." I'd put money on the fact that Erik will find it weeks from now on one of his trash-day-fridge-purges. (If you don't have a husband who does this, get one!). But I think since I've cleaned up the dishes every night, I definitely deserve a cupcake right now.
I spent forever trying to come up with a segue for posting this picture, but I gave up and am just going to unabashedly whore out my child.
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