Happy New Year!
Hope everyone started their year off right and had a lovely holiday season. I’ve got a bit of catching up to do here at cute and delicious but I’ve got a few treats in store. First, I wanted to travel back in time, not too far back, just to the end of December, and finally let you all in on those gifts hidden in the bags. You remember, right?
Yeah those ones…Now I filled them with all sorts of things but I tried to make a good portion of the gifts that I put in them. This ended up being mostly for the girls I gave gifts to, as well, it’s just easier to make stuff for girls sometimes. Since I only had a few weeks to get all my gifts in order, I decided to make aprons from A is for Apron. The designs were cute and not overly complicated. I picked a few designs and made six different aprons in total.
This one you see my mom wearing is probably my favorite as it has a completely different feel than most aprons you see. It’s a full apron with a smocky design that is still elegant. My mom’s only complaint was that she wouldn’t want to get it dirty, which is pretty good coming from an apron connoisseur like her.
My other favorite was this super cute design that you see on Amy, Shawn’s sister. I loved all the trim on this one and the fun combination of fabric patterns. Overall, A is for Apron was great in that most of the designs are really great and it has a lot of tips and apron history. On the other hand, the directions are, unfortunately, written pretty poorly. It took a lot of re-reading and just plain ignoring the directions and go with my own sewing knowledge to make them all come out correctly.
Like I said, I didn’t make every gift, there were definitely a bunch of books, blu-rays, stainless steel water bottles and the like handed out as well. After last year’s christmas cookie disaster, I stayed away from baking gifts this year. I did, on the other hand, have to bring something to share at my family christmas party.
I decided on vegan rice krispie pops dipped in chocolate, thinking their cuteness would make up for their simplicity. Last year I made peppermint cookies and cream cupcakes and they were hardly touched (obviously they didn’t know what they were missing).
This year all the krispie pops were snatched up before dessert was even served, mainly by small children, who gobbled them up off their sticks. Thanks to dandies, no one had any clue these treats were vegan.
Soon after this, Shawn and I left for a cross country road trip for two weeks. I can’t wait to show you all some of the awesome places we visited all across the country.
My favorite ghost cake
Vegan Ghost Cake from Shawn Bannon on Vimeo.
I had posted this video previously but it wasn’t anywhere near Halloween so I thought it deserved to be brought back for another go around. The little ghosts are made from Dandies vegan marshmallows and frosting. I think it’s possibly the cutest cake I’ve ever made. Enjoy the video. Weee!
Missing in Action
You may have noticed that it’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted here, and thought that I’d gone and disappeared without reason. Well here’s my big fat excuse, which I think is a pretty decent one. I’m making a movie. To be a little more specific, I am producing a feature film that Shawn is directing (that we wrote together.) It’s the most work I’ve ever done in my life, and I barely sleep or eat, let alone cook or make fancy things for this blog. But since we had the holiday weekend off, and I didn’t want to keep you all in the dark forever, thinking maybe I’d abandoned blogging entirely, I felt you loyal readers deserved some explanation.
Anyway, enough with the prologue, if I’m gonna blog, it better be about something worthwhile, so here was my one creation I managed to sneak in this weekend. Espresso, chocolate chip, marshmallow ice cream. I had some mini-chocolate chips and thought they would be better in ice cream than anything else, and best in espresso ice cream. I’ve been fantasizing about making this for weeks now. To make things easy, I just used the recipe from Vegan Ice Cream Paradise.
So as the ice cream was freezing up, I decided it was absolutely necessary to throw just a few Dandies in the mix. Unfortunately, this is the point when I discovered that my marshmallows had melted into one mass of sticky marshmallow goo. I had been planning to make some surprise chocolate cookies with chocolate frosting, but that was obviously not happening. I chopped up the mondo-marshmallow into some chunks and threw it in the ice cream mix.
Well, I have to say, I wasn’t thrilled with my results. You’d think that by mixing some of the most amazing flavors possible, there’s no way you could go wrong, but it’s just not true. I think there are two flaws in my concoction. First, it needed WAY more espresso flavor. I put 1/3 cup espresso(about 2 shots) which is more than the recipe called for, but it was still very creamy and not the intense coffee flavor I desired. Second, I would have preferred the chocolate chips chopped even more, into those tiny little chocolate bits. I will say, the marshmallow was the most genius addition. I just wanted more and more marshmallow goodness. At least now I know for next time…
So on that note, I’m off again, back to the filmmaking extravaganza. I’ll be back to the blogging world in a few weeks. If you want to know more about the film, you can check it out at brainwashedlove.com or become a fan on facebook. Till then!
Dandies marshmallow ghost cake
A few months back when I heard the announcement that Chicago Soy Dairy would be making jet puffed vegan marshmallows, I already knew the first thing I would be baking with them. Marshmallows are the one thing that I have missed since I was a vegetarian. I love the sugary flavor, the soft texture and especially the taste when roasted over a flame. As a teenager, when I discovered marshmallows had gelatin in them, I was honestly devestated. Since then, I’ve made my own marshmallows with the kit from Angel Food and indulged in the true confection that is Sweet and Sarah’s marshmallows.
Last Halloween, when I was planning spooky desserts to make, I came across this cake decorated with miniature ghosts. Sadly, the adorably constructed ghosties were made out of marshmallows and it was really only their cylindrical shape that gave them their ghostly appearance. I was not pleased with how my homemade marshmallows turned out, otherwise I would have made another stab at creating cylindrical ones myself. Instead I found myself making ridiculous frosting ghost cupcakes.When I heard about Dandies I was exstatic. Not only do I have another vegan marshmallow option, but I could finally fulfill my dream of making a ghost cake.
I wanted a dark cake so I baked up a chocolatey coffee cake. I topped the bottom layer with a few Dandies just to see how they would bake. They puffed up in the oven and turned a beautiful golden brown. Though I had initially made a vanilla frosting go to go with it, I used so much to cover the cake that I had to top it off with some left over cookies and cream frosting. I then made my little ghost friends by sticking the Dandies on toothpicks and frosting their heads with vanilla frosting. The cake turned out amazingly. It was decadent with a contrast of rich chocolate and coffee with vanilla and cookies. My favorite part was the Dandies baked in to the center. Not only did it taste great, but it looked awesome; a perfect combination of spooky and cute.
We were so excited about the cake, Shawn made a little animation from it full of cute Dandies ghosts. I love it! I also had a ton of fun roasting these guys with a creme brulee torch (as we have an electric oven and no burners).
Vegan Ghost Cake from Shawn Bannon on Vimeo.
