New Blog

My new blog is up!
Veganini will be a much broader slice of my life.
The emphasis is on vegan food..
Knowing me, a lot of that will be the sweet variety.
Hope to see you there!

so long, farewell, I hate to say goodnight..

You may have noticed.. hmmn.. nothing at all on this blog, for a very long time.

My inner-cupcake is now happy! :)
But I'm still having difficulty negotiating the health issues, of having a serious baking habit-
As far as I'm aware, such godsends as earthbalance, haven't made it to Australia yet..
(If you know where I can buy such an ingredient here, please let me know!!!!!!!!!!)
And too, it seems like the other ingredients required to make organic-vegan-low-fat-refined-sugar-free cupakes, are kind of expensive..
And well, there's always the case of my ever tightening clothes-
Maybe it's all those cupcakes, finally catching up with me and my thighs..

So-
Hey there cupcake! is saying good-bye.
I'm going to start a new food blog-
I have too much of a sweet tooth, for it not to be heavily erred on the side of wild abandon, chocolate and frosting..
So fear not, there will be many more cupcakes to come..

Thanks so much for stopping by here this past year!
I'd share cupcakes with all of you if I could..

I'll link the new blog here, when it's up and cooking..
Please stop by sometime..

Carrot, Coconut, Pineapple & Macadamia Cupcakes

A very slow coming post!

Back in September, my favourite team- The Swans, got into the grand-final, the big kahuna of AFL..

K and I traveled down to Melbourne, to hang out with my brother and his g.f E, and go to the Grand-final game...

Before that they played Freemantle..

I made these tasty, tasty Carrot, Coconut, Pineapple & Macadamia Cupcakes, for the game.

I took the recipe from "Vegan with a Vengeance", and added pineapple chunks.

I had many tasters, and they all said- "hmmn maybe my favourite ever"..

These were SO good.

I used a vegan buttercream coconut milk frosting- ugh a wee little bit of hydrogenation, but tasty!

They were made, in part with coconut cream, desicated coconut, grated carrot, pineapple juice, pineapple chunks & crushed macadamia nuts- woah mamma! :)

I only had time to do a half-arse decoration job- paper..

Anyhoo, they won, and the cupcakes were de-lish..

Almost raspberry blackout cupcakes

Yesterday afternoon I baked.
I baked with zeal and I baked with joy.

I made "VWAV" infamous raspberry blackout cake- with a few changes:
Apple juice concentrate instead of sugar, and strawberry jam, because I didn't have raspberry- oh and some prune puree, because I don't know why!!?

After seeing cake after beautiful cake- of the chocolate variety on flickr, I had a keen hankering for some good ol' chocolate cake.
Truth be told, I've always sucked at making chocolate cake, I'm not sure what it is, maybe because I'm not one of those 'chocolate people'.

It must have been that pesky habit of mine- recipe tweaking!:

As the cupcakes came out ok yummy.. just not as sensational as I imagined this cake should be..

But the big bad cake critic who is my husband gave them the thumbs up- even without frosting (!!?) as did my friends little family-

Her 3 year old son, gave me a big chocolate toothed grin, as he mumbled

"I like this"

The era of frosting is over..
I was going to make a combination frosting: ganache/buttercream..

As I reached for the partially hydrogenated vegetable spread, all the articles about the link between, hydrogenated fats and heart disease, flooded into my half baked brain..
They are believed to potentially increase ones chance of heart disease by 85%!!
So, no more buttercream for me.
And I wonder about the idealism of veganism- good for the environment, good for the animals.. just maybe I can't have my cupcake frosted, and eat it too..

The lady has not been fattened sufficiently..

My inner cupcake has been a little down lately, and thus, 'Hey there cupcake!' posts, have been few and far between...

I've been patiently waiting for my inner cupcake to chirp up a bit- and start cranking out the cupcakes again.. but it's now been, I don't even know how many weeks, and still no cakes!

My little cupcake (and thus 'Hey there cupcake!') is going on a holiday..

There will be baking, but just not as much as before..

I was trying to bake at least once a week- but I think it just wore my little cupcake out..

I'm so chuffed, not to mention surprised, at how many of you sweeties check in on this blog- AND, from all corners of the globe to boot!

Please do keep coming on over, to see what's cooking in my kitchen, and leaving comments (it's good to hear from you)..

You can check in at my flickr account for updates- or head right back here, for new cupcakes- as they come, hot from the oven..

Citrus Almond Cupcakes with Zabaglione

Citrus Almond Cupcakes with Zabaglione

These were made for the Italia v. France world cup final.

No pretty picture with this one.

As you have to eat zabaglione right away, this shot is the best I got- because, you know, I couldn't be bothered for anything more at 4am..

Getting UP at 3:30am just to make the zabaglione was plenty effort enough!

My father has a small hobby farm.

On it he has 4 chickens, who are ridiculously well looked after- I mean, my little Nonna feeds them better than she feeds herself..

And they are asked nothing more, than to peck about the yard all day.

SO, althought vegan, I do not have an issue with eating their eggs.

That said I was all out on sunday afternoon, so went all out vegan with my cupcakes.

(haha, I got some later on- just in time for the zabaglione though!)

I had found a yummy Italian chestnut cake recipe- but discovered my chestnuts had gone mouldy already!! :(

So I used VWAV again, and made a cupcake, loosely based on the citrus rum syrup cake.

Basically lot's of almond meal, chopped almond slivers, citrus peel, and orange juice..

(I thought the flavours would go nicely with the zabaglione)

The cakes had a yummy taste, but were extremely dense.

They did not keep well at all - read:became rock like, by the next day.

Making zabaglione at 3:30am, all the while, trying to be quite, so as not to wake the non-soccer enthusiast- well, it was rather difficult.

I was again disappointed by the supposed Italian culinary bible "Silver Spoon", as although followed to the letter, the zabaglione had far too much marsala..

STILL-

The cakes did taste yummy with the zabaglione.

The flavours worked quite nicely together, and I was glad for the change-
A frostingless cupcake (my husband insists, they were therefore actually muffins) ..

At least Italia fared better than my cupcakes.

I guess you win some, lose some.

Soc-a-roos Soc-Soc-a-roos

Sono italo-australiana.

Australia has not been in the World Cup (in my life time), and so, I've always cheered on the Azzurris.

This year, and whaddaya know-
Australia qualifies, makes it out of the first pool, and meets Italy at the quarter-final entry game.

And so, I baked cupcakes.

Blue for the Azzurris, and green & gold for the Socceroos.

My cupcake prediction was right on the money.

I made an even amount of batter, yet the Azzurri batter, yielded just one more cupcake than the Socceroos.

1:0

The Azzurri cupcakes used a sicilian cake recipe I found, and altered.

They were orange & almond cupcakes with orange buttercream frosting.

I basically followed VWaV's "Lemon Gems" cake recipe-

Substituting orange juice & rind, for lemon.

I also substituted some of the plain flour, with almond meal, and added some almond essence.

The canola oil was halved and compensated for, by the addition of apple sauce, and the sugar was substituted with apple juice concentrate & maple syrup.

I also added one egg into the mix (while VWaV recipes never use eggs).

The Australian Socceroos cupcakes were virtually the same, except they adhered to the lemony rules of the "Lemon Gems", and were finished with lemon buttercream frosting.

Their lemony-ness AND Australian-ness was heightened by the addition, of the Australian native herb- Lemon myrtle.

Last night, at 1am, while watching the game live, I appropriately ate 1/2 an Azzuri, and 1/2 a Socceroo.

They were deliciously light and fluffy, and infact the perfect midnight snack, as they weren't too flavourful, heavy or sweet- just right!

As fate would have it, it was my closet-crush of days gone by, scored the winning goal- Mr Francesco Totti..

A win for me either way, but still, I can't help wishing the Socceroos had won..