Halloween Movie Marathon Massacre
Live blogging from the 2nd Annual Halloween Movie Marathon Massacre. This event has gotten a little out of control. As of this moment we’ve watched 12 movies straight, starting at around 8 pm last night. It’s now past 6 pm. We’re getting close to 24 hours of Halloween movie madness. So I’m not going to write much because, well, I’m rather sleep deprived and whatever I write will probably sound ridiculous (disclaimer: I have actually slept through part of at least a few movies). Instead I’m just going to show you a few of the treats I made for the event. Above you can see some vanilla cupcakes with orange frosting.
I also made cookies and cream cupcakes and decorated them with crumbled Newman’s O’s. I had intended to put little graham cracker headstones on each but I totally burnt them. They looked even more awesome burnt but were not at all edible.
My favorite treat that I got to make was caramel corn. I used the recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking. It’s amazing. I can really only make this stuff for special events because I will eat the entire batch.
We also had a veggie hot dog station inspired by The Franken Stand. Sometimes if you can’t get the real thing you just have to make your own. Luckily, they have been at some great events this month, so we get to enjoy them somewhat frequently.
We’re down to five movie watchers, including myself. It’s amazing. The plan is to head to the Cinefamily and catch the double feature of Victims and Don’t Go In the House to finish the extravaganza. I’ll keep you posted.
Movies so far: Labyrinth The Brood I Spit on Your Grave Poltergeist Friday the 13th part 4 Sleepaway Camp Dawn of the Dead (original) Shaun of the Dead Lost Boys Ringu Necromantic SuspiriaUPDATE
I finished with:
Victims Don’t Go in the HouseI think that the remaining three watched Close Encounters after that.
So many hours of horror!
White Russian Cupcakes
Do I really need to describe these? White Russian in a cupcake. I’m just gonna go ahead and give you the recipe. Beware this frosting is deadly.
White Russian Cupcakes
Kahlua batter
½ cup soy milk
½ tsp white vinegar
1 ¼ cup flour
1 Tbsp corn starch
¼ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
¼ cup plus 1 Tbsp sugar
3 Tbsp oil
½ tsp vanilla
1 tsp coffee extract
2 Tbsp Kahlua
1 tsp vodka
Cream batter
½ cup soy milk
½ tsp white vinegar
1 cup + 2 Tbsp flour
¼ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
¼ cup plus 2 Tbsp sugar
4 Tbsp oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp vodka
White Russian Frosting
1/4 cup Earth Balance
2 Tbsp Kahlua
2 tsp vodka
1 – 1/2 cup powdered sugar
Preheat the oven to 350°. Fill cupcake tray with liners.
The trick with this recipe is to make both batters at the same time. That means mix all your wet ingredients and all your dry ingredients for both batches simultaneously and then combine them both together. That means you should be working with four bowls.
Mix soy milk and vinegar and set aside. Combine all the dry ingredients for both batters in two separate bowls. In two more bowls, combine all wet ingredients adding the soy milk mixture last. Mix the wet and dry for the Kahlua batter until there aren’t an noticeable lumps. Divide between the 12 cups. Then mix wet and dry for the creme mixture and fill the cups the remaining 3/4 full.
Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool on a rack completely.
For the frosting, beat the Earth Balance until smooth. Add the Kahlua and vodka and beat until fully combined. Add 1 cup of powdered sugar and beat until smooth again. Add more powdered sugar as necessary. A note on this, I used the soy free Earth Balance which is not as dense as the regular stuff so I used 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar, I imagine only 1 cup will be needed though normally. Also, double the recipe if you want to pipe the frosting.
Eat these suckers (but don’t eat too many)!
vegan bake sale
Well, the time has finally come to let you all in on a little secret…my vegan baking endeavors are going public. Vegan Bake Sale has been launched. It’s still in it’s beginning stages, but now you can order vegan desserts till your heart’s content (or I suppose your belly’s content, whichever). Right now I’ll be focusing on cupcakes and cakes, but some great cheesecake options are on the way, and cookies too. So if you’re in the Los Angeles are and you need something special for a birthday or event, Vegan Bake Sale is here to help! These aren’t the healthy, crunchy, cardboard vegan desserts you find at health food stores, they’re the decadent, delicious treats that could fool any non-vegan.
In fact, I’ll be at 3:28 The Death of FUN this Saturday with a ton of cupcakes. So come out and enjoy the wonderful Los Angeles spring time and nosh on some cupcake goodness. The bike ride will be going all day and all over the city (you can see more details in the facebook event) but I’ll be at Pan Pacific Park between 5 and 6 pm. I highly suggest if you have a bike and are in the area, you should not miss this. If you don’t have a bike, borrow one! There are so many great rides incorporated into this day and a lot of cool events planned along the way. Besides, it is the death of fun, so if you’re not there, you may never have fun again.
Potlucks
Up until last year, when I was fortunately invited to meet up with some Los Angeles vegan bloggers, I had never been to a potluck besides some family holiday affairs. Recently though, it seems like every weekend I’m trying to make something to bring to an event. The most amazing part is that most of these have been vegan potlucks which is extra awesome because you get to try a bunch of treats made by other vegans.
There is always the dilemma of what to bring. Ideally one should bring actual food to a potluck so that everyone can eat. It’s no fun to show up when there is only various flavors of chips and dip. A few weeks ago I attended the BBQ/potluck after Feel My Legs, I’m a Racer, a bike race up the ten steepest hills in Los Angeles. I did not race up any of the hills, instead I biked a macaroni and chreese with broccoli casserole in my basket across town. I managed to arrive right on time, coming right around a corner to meet Shawn just as him and the other racers finished. Everyone was super hungry and most everything was devoured including veggie hot dogs, homemade seitan, vegan corn dogs and pasta salad.
Just the next day I got to attend another BBQ at a friends house. When I asked what to bring, I got the go ahead to bring dessert and was quite excited because there are few things I like more than baking cupcakes. I decided to try out a new recipe for spiced tea cupcakes. Since I wasn’t sure how many people would be there I went ahead and made mini versions. The spiced tea cakes were sweet and simple, a subtle black tea flavor with a bit of a kick. Even though it was an omni BBQ, our hosts made us an awesome vegetarian chili with extra beer, veggie dogs and grilled corn (with earth balance!). There was also homemade sangria to be enjoyed. Delicious!
We were also lucky enough to visit the new home of Sunny of Vegan Beauty Review and her husband along with some other vegan friends. We chowed down on vegan mushroom pate made by George from Sante la Brea and fried faux shrimps from Garden Wok brought by Lex and Kristen of Vegan LA. Vegyogini from Hugger Food made some tasty vegan cadbury cream eggs and Foodeater from To Live and Eat in LA brought a ton of adorable, colorful mochis (which I gobbled up quite a few of). I made cupcakes (again!) this time going for a simple strawberry shortcake cupcake. You can’t see the surprise filling of fresh strawberries hiding under the extra fluffy frosting. Unfortunately I was so full of other food I didn’t even get to try one of these, but Shawn assures me they were delicious and in fact still hold the place of his favorite cupcakes.
On a non-food related note, something I’ve been meaning to show off for a bit is the wall scratcher I made for my cats. When I first got Meeme and Mochi I was enthralled by all the modern looking cat furniture that was nothing like the carpet covered trees I’ve always seen. On the other hand, I was not excited at all about the prices. I decided to take matters into my own hands and make my own version of a wall scratcher. I ordered a piece of lovely orange carpet and obtained a leftover piece of wood shelving from a construction site, glued it together with some industrial adhesive and voila! While my custom piece cost less than $25 all together, the much smaller version it was based on cost double that. Most importantly though, Meeme and Mochi love streching out and scatching it so I have deemed it a complete success.
Holidays, NYC and lots of dessert
homemade cinnamon bunIt is the last day of 2008! Had to squeeze in one last delicious post before the new year. I’m excited for all the projects and plans coming up. I know it’s going to be an awesome year.
Before moving forward, I’m going to have to look back for a moment as the past weeks have been terribly busy and I haven’t had a chance to show off some of the treats we’ve been indulging in. I made the above cinnamon bun from The Joy of Vegan Baking. I’ve been dying to make these, but was a bit scared off by the prep time. Since I have had a couple of days off, I finally had a chance to indulge myself. It was extra inspired by smelling the Cinnabon in the airport the day prior. Despite the fact that those things are quite possibly one of the most disgusting creations ever, the sure do smell good.
I ended up over cooking my buns a bit, but I think this may have had a bit to do with using new cookie sheets. They still tasted awesome, and were even better reheated the next morning with coffee.
peppermint cookies and cream cupcakeFor my family Christmas party, I opted to bring cupcakes rather than anything to actually eat for dinner. It worked out rather well as a bunch of my cousins happened to make vegan vegetable dishes. I made peppermint cookies and cream cupcakes. The cupcakes themselves came out amazing, perfectly moist and chocolaty. I still can’t decide if I liked the peppermint in the icing though, it was good, but perhaps too much. Maybe not though.
cookies and cream cakeShawn and I went back East to spend time with his family for the holidays. It was super exciting for me to show up and see snow on the ground.
I feel very lucky to have so many vegan restaurants in Los Angeles to go to, but it’s nothing like going to NYC. There’s just a different style of vegan/vegetarian restaurant there. The other thing that gets me super excited is getting to have some Vegan Treats. Pretty much every vegan restaurant in the area serves their desserts and there is honestly nothing like them. Over the summer, Shawn and I made a pilgrimage to their storefront in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania where I was even more blown away by their selection of French pastries.
On one of our days in the city, we had lunch at Curly’s. I had a toastie with tomato, which is basically a vegan grilled cheese with red pesto and of course tomato. It was one of the most satisfying lunches. Simple and tasty and exactly what I wanted. Shawn had the Suno melt. I’ve had vegan tuna melts before, but have never been impressed. I only had a bite, but this was super good. Of course, we had to get some dessert, and I insisted on a cookies and cream cake, freshly delivered from Vegan Treats the previous day. The cake was moist and the frosting light and fluffy. Honestly, exactly how cake should taste, sweet and rewarding.
peanut butter cheesecake
cookies and cream brownieAt some point we also made a quick stop at Moo Shoes and Babycakes. I’m sure a lot of people will disagree with me, but after some more sampling, I’m really not a fan of Babycakes. Their desserts just don’t quite fulfill my sweet tooth. I can’t really pinpoint what it is about them that I don’t care for. The best way I can describe it is that I always feel a level of excitement when I enjoy a really good vegan dessert. Babycakes just doesn’t give me that thrill. I also am not a fan of their prices at all. Some cupcakes cost nearly $5 and that seems outrageous to me.
So that’s about it for 2008. Many exciting things to come in the future. I hope everyone had lovely holidays and Happy New Year!
