I do all my own stunts

No animals were harmed in the making of this party

A baby shower

Not just any baby shower.  This one was for me and the twins, hosted by my amazing friends, Dana and Jill.  It was beautifully planned and executed;  every detail carefully thought out - even down to the colors of the beverages and the sprinkling sugar on the cupcakes.  

The lovely hostesses and I.  

To my tremendous delight, the entire menu for the event was 100% VEGAN!  

The cupcakes were from Flying Apron Bakery.

All the other food was made by Dana and Jill.  It was absolutely fantastic!  Even the omnivores were quite impressed.  

Partygoers Grandma, myself, Mom and Mother in Law

The diaper cakes made by Jill were so sweet and adorable.  Why two?, you ask - I asked the same thing.  Because there are two babies, of course.  Like I said, no detail went unaccounted for.  

Jill followed my tutorial for these diaper cakes.  They turned out beautifully.  It makes me wonder if she shouldn't be writing this blog.  

In addition to her crafting talents, Jill is a fantastic photographer.  These photographs come to you courtesy of her!  Check out her blog for a sampling of her photography and in-depth documentation of her son Jackson's major milestones.  

I felt so honored by Dana and Jill for hosting such a gorgeous and thoughtfully executed party.  And to all the guests who attended and literally showered me with gifts, thank you so much.  It was perfect.  

Happy St. Patrick's Day & How to Salvage a Baking Failure (Sort of)

Vegan Chocolate Stout Cake

Oops.

St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was born in Britain and was captured as a slave by Irish raiders when he was about 16 years old.  He toiled as a herdsman for 6 years and eventually escaped back to his family in Britain.  After joining the Church, he returned to Ireland as a bishop where he lived and worked in the mid to late 5th century.  Legend credits St. Patrick with banishing the snakes from Ireland, but scientific evidence (read: Wikipedia) reports that Ireland never had snakes.  Possibly the snakes refer to the serpent symbol of the Druids of that time.  In writings credited to St. Patrick, he describes his time as a foreigner in Ireland as not easy.  His refusal to accept gifts from kings made him an outsider in the normal order of things and he was at times beaten, robbed and put in chains.  

St. Patrick has been revered as the patron saint of Ireland since about the 8th century.  I scoured the internet for any mention of St. Patrick as being especially forgiving, but I couldn't find anything that specifically states that he was.  I imagine as a saint up in heaven, he would have to be quite forgiving of all the green-beer-induced debauchery and transgressions known to happen on his feast day.  

That's good because I totally screwed up.  See below.  

(What would have been) perfect for St. Patrick's Day:  Chocolate Stout Cake.  If you don't want to drink your Guinness*, go ahead and bake something delicious with it!  Just don't screw it up like I did.  

I've made this cake a couple times and had great results.  But this time, when I had my camera handy, I was stupidly impatient and didn't wait until the cake was fully cooled before I flipped it out of the bundt pan.  

It started out great, and even tasted great as I sampled forkfulls of cake from the bottom of the pan.  As you can see from the top photo, it just didn't look great.  Looking beautiful is of huge importance in my world and I almost didn't share this recipe with you folks because of it.  

But thankfully, this cake has an incredibly marvelous component that allows the baker to fudge a less-than-perfect execution (somewhat).  

A glaze.  

This cake is deep, dark and decadent.  It is supremely moist and the stout really adds a richness to the flavor.  I made this cake, with prettier results, for my Dad's birthday back in February.  I think it is a perfect dessert to make for dudes; the beer makes it sound so tough.  This cake is delicious on its own, not too sweet, but I think the glaze adds just the right amount of luscious indulgence to make it not just a chocolate cake, but 'A CHOCOLATE CAKE'.  

Plus, the glaze helps to cover up an impatient mistake.

Vegan Chocolate Stout Cake

adapted from this recipe

1 cup stout

1 cup canola oil

3/4 cup dutch-process cocoa powder, sifted

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1.5 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

2 replaced eggs (I use Ener-G egg replacer)

2/3 cup silken tofu (about 2/3 of a 12.3 oz package).  

1 tbsp lemon juice

6 oz semi sweet chocolate chips

6 tbsp soy milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Oil and flour a bundt pan (don't skip this step or the cake will stick to the pan and your results will be even more disastrous than mine).  

Bring stout and oil to a simmer in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat.  Add cocoa powder and whisk until smooth.  Remove from heat and let cool slightly.  Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.  Blend the tofu and lemon juice together in a blender of food processor.  Add the egg replacer powder and water and blend again.  Add tofu mixture to the stout-chocolate mixture pan and beat just to combine.  Add the chocolate mixture to the flour mixture and fold batter until completely combined.  Pour into the prepared bundt pan and bake for about 45 minutes until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.  Transfer the cake to a rack and let cool completely in the pan.  

When cool, turn out the cake onto a cake stand or plate.  It should come out relatively easily.  Heat chocolate chips and soy milk in a double boiler stirring until smooth.  Spoon or pour the glaze over the cake and serve.  

The glaze does cover up some mistakes, but if you practice patience, a virtue St. Patrick would no doubt approve of, your cake will look absolutely gorgeous, I promise.  

*Strict vegans should note that Guinness technically isn't vegan due to the use of isinglass - from fish bladder - in the filtration process.  Appetizing, huh?  Check Barnivore.com for more info.  Anyway, I used Pike Brewery's XXXXX stout which does not use isinglass and is more vegan friendly as far as I can tell.  

Nesting sustenance.

Caramel Nut Bars

In our 'Preparing for Multiples' class, Brian and I learned that one of the signs that a person is going into labor is 'nesting', e.g., obsessively cleaning the house, sanitizing, organizing.  Brian joked that I must have been in labor for the past 6 years.  Very funny.  

It's true, I'm kind of a neat freak.  I have an entire collection of toothbrushes expressly set aside for specific cleaning projects.  I clean up non-existent dust bunnies under my bed every day.  You could eat a sloppy joe off my toilet seat and I like it that way.  Although it pains me, I do understand that this is going to change once the twins arrive.  I've heard that the only way for a person like me to successfully balance two newborns and a neat, well-organized home is to find some sort of a 12-step program to deal with the fact that the house is going to be a mess.  Period.  

Well, as difficult as it is to acknowledge this, I have thoroughly been enjoying these past few months.  A kind of 'calm before the storm'.  Brian and I have both been nesting like crazy.  Tying up loose ends, organizing, cleaning, painting, working in the yard.  And yes, I know how backward it is to think of those types of activities as 'calming'.  But I do.  

I've also been doing quite a bit of baking.  I imagine it'll be somewhat difficult to fill my pastry bags with one infant under each arm, so I'm soaking it up while I still can.  I'm sure you saw the picture at the top of this post, so I doubt you need any convincing;  you want to make these Caramel Nut Bars.  They're just so stinking delicious, they taste like you don't deserve them.  

The recipe comes from the Sweet Pea Baking Co. in Portland.  The original recipe and accompanying video instruction can be accessed here.  I adhered to their recipe pretty strictly, except I recommend dismissing their instruction to stir the caramel only occasionally.  You should stir it constantly to prevent it from burning.  I learned the hard way.  

Caramel Nut Bars

Crust

2 1/2 cups flour

1 1/4 cups brown sugar

1 cup chilled non-dairy butter, I like Earth Balance

Caramel Sauce

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup flour

1 cup water

1/2 tsp salt

2 tbsp non-dairy butter

2 tbsp soy milk

1 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp flour

2 cups salted mixed nuts, whole or halved - not chopped

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Line a 9X13'' baking pan with parchment paper.  

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and brown sugar for the crust.  Add the butter in one-inch chunks and cut in with a pastry cutter until coarse crumbs form.  It will be very  dry and sandy.  Pour it all into the baking pan and spread it out evenly pressing down firmly with your hands.  Bake for 15-22 minutes or until slightly golden brown.  Set aside to cool.  

While crust is baking, start the caramel sauce.  In a small bowl, whisk together the brown sugar and 1/2 cup flour.  In a small sauce pan, bring the water to a boil over high heat.  As soon as it starts to boil, whisk in the sugar/flour mixture.  Reduce the heat to medium-low and slowly boil for about 5 minutes stirring constantly to ensure the sugar does not burn.  The liquid should thicken a bit.  Remove from heat and whisk in salt, butter, soy milk, vanilla and the tbsp of flour.  

Pour caramel sauce over prepared crust and smooth with a spatula.  Sprinkle the nuts evenly over the top and put back in the oven for 10 more minutes.  Remove and let cool before cutting.  

Yum.  

Be mine, Be mine

For you, Valentine

I love Valentine's Day.  I could care less about its supposed 'Hallmark-ization'.  Bah.  Dreary February is the perfect time of year for a holiday, especially one expressly for the celebration of love.  

When we first started dating, Brian didn't even know on which day of the year Valentine's Day falls.  'It's sometime in February, right?'  Well, he has since come around a little bit.  In fact, he is in the kitchen as I type prepping for our dinner of Yellow Finn Potato Gnocchi with Beet-Merlot Reduction, Roasted Beets and Walnuts from The Artful Vegan cookbook.  Isn't he sweet?  You see, February 14th is the one night of the year when Brian cooks for me.  We call it 'Valentine's Day', but you could go with 'Opposite Day' and no one would call you a liar.  I find it so romantic.  It's even better than my birthday.  

Another reason I love Valentine's Day is because of all the fancy, celebratory desserts that go along with it.  Store-bought chocolates are a bore, but beautiful cookies and homemade treats make me swoon.  This year, I decided to make simple Conversation Heart cookies as an homage to the Valentine's staple that we all remember from our childhoods.  I tried to recreate the sugary pastel colors and the sometimes cringe-inducing sayings like 'TOO HOT' or 'PAGE ME' imprinted on those beloved Sweethearts.  Love them or hate them, they're not going away.  

I used the sugar cookie recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick Goudreau.  I can't recommend this cookbook enough.  If you're a baking traditionalist like me, this book has all the recipes you grew up on, but without the use of animal products.  Everything I've made has turned out fantastically.  If you're skeptical and don't feel like buying the book, there are a ton of similar sugar cookie recipes available online.  Here's  one.  

I also used Colleen's recipe for royal icing.  It calls for a touch of almond extract which gives it a better flavor than traditional royal icing which basically just tastes like sugar glue.  Warning:  Royal icing's resemblance to glue is not a deceptive coincidence.  It is very, very sticky.  I dropped a pastry knife full of it when I was icing these cookies and it landed on my dog.  Poor little dude.  

By far the cheeziest trend in Conversation Hearts sayings I witnessed this year is the infiltration of 'text speak'.  Like 'UR KIND' and 'U R A 10'.  Ouch.  And it may be because I am completely oblivious to the world of online social simulation gaming (Read: old and out of touch), but I just completely do not understand this one:  'BE MY ICON'.  What?  Anyone?  

The most cheerful of baked goods

Cupcakes

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

I am waiting for the plumber.  He was supposed to be here at 8:30 AM; it is now 10:00.  The audacity required to show up one and a half hours late to an appointment defies all credulity.  I should take this extra time at home to do something productive like pay bills, or something relaxing and informative like peruse this month's Sunset magazine.  Yet I am paralyzed.  I am seething with fury over what an asshole this guy is.  

Except the truth is, our plumber isn't an asshole at all.  He is pretty wonderful actually.  Personable, not condescending, talkative, fun.  If it weren't for the constant cloud of stale cigarette smoke surrounding his person, I could picture us being friends.  And, living in a house built in 1938, a plumber friend would be wildly practical.  

How do I handle this?  I've already called his office.  He's on his way.  I don't want to answer the door tapping my foot and pointedly glancing at my left wrist in thinly veiled passive aggression.  It will be hard to keep up my persona of breezy politeness with near toxic levels of bitch coursing through my veins.  How will I manage?  And of course, the plumber and his lateness are not to blame.  Plumbers, cable guys, electrical repair men:  notoriously late.  I know this already.  And an 8:30 AM appointment?  Please!  Getting out of bed any earlier than 9:45 was a grievous aberration; a momentary lapse in the calm, protective cynicism that customarily typifies my character.  

Having engaged in the futile practice of trying to erase the scowl from my forehead in the mirror for the past 15 minutes, I can only think of one other activity to engage in:  telling you folks about the cupcakes I made the other day.  I am hoping that the absurdity of it will have a warming effect on my icy, black heart.  

These delicious lovelies are from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, my vegan idols and saviors of my marriage on multiple occasions.  They're fantastically rich and spicy with bits of candied ginger in the cupcakes and surprisingly well complimented by the cool, lemony cream cheese frosting.  They're perfect and charming and bring a smile to your face, as all cupcakes do.  And I don't know about you, but I constantly crave gingerbread around this time of year.  If you don't have it already, get the book.  Make these cupcakes.  

OK.  I feel a bit better now.  Surprisingly less homicidal, which is a good thing.  And supremely smug in the knowledge that the plumber will get exactly none of my cupcakes.  Mainly because I've already eaten them all and I haven't any left to give him, but I remain smug all the same.