Fabric and Fondant

It's time for another Work-In-Progress Wednesday! This week I'm focusing on fondant and fabric, my two weapons of choice when it comes to creating lately.

I finished up sewing my sun and surf halter top with the help of my Sew Crafty peeps. I love the fabric and can't wait to wear this around the beach when summer rolls around. To celebrate, I of course brought cupcakes. I made the VCTOTW S'mores cupcakes but added a chocolate ganache layer beneath the frosting to add extra chocolatey flavor and added ricemallow cream to the frosting (both tips courtesy of Conscious Kitchen). The ganache was still warmy when I frosted them, so they ended up being all gooey.... just like a good s'more should be!

Another completed project started off with making what looked like packing peanuts to one of my Flickr commenters! These are actually handmade fondant bows. Unfinished bows on the left, finished ones on the right. I had to make 72 of these little bows....
To go on top of 72 cupcakes! These were for a Breakfast at Tiffany's-themed bridal shower. Half chocolate and half vanilla, both with cream cheese frosting tinted that signature blue color.
Here is a close up shot of the cupcakes. Apparently they were the hit of the party!
Now for a few current projects involving fondant and fabric.... This hula print really made me giggle when I saw it so I'm using it to make someone else smile on their birthday. Can't reveal any more than that right now, more to come later.
And here is a fondant giraffe that I'm working on as I type this for a banana first birthday cake. Assembly will take place tomorrow. Now just trying to decide on a coordinating border color to pipe on the cake. I'm thinking brown? Or is that too blah? Future projects: the WIP stitch along, blankets to donate to the Snuggles project, and an apron!

Stomping Grounds Cake and a Contest

First things first. The cake. I was asked to make the birthday cake for one very cool vegan kid celebrating his fifth birthday. The party was held at the "Stomping Grounds" playland, so to continue the "stomping" theme, a dinosaur cake was in order. I know my brontosaurus and his footprints aren't exactly anatomically correct, but at least they are cute. The volcano was apparently the hit of the party when the birthday boy was blowing out his candles.
Even though this was the largest cake I've ever made (11'x15'), I was nervous that it wouldn't be enough for a crowd of hungry toddlers (is 5 a toddler? I don't know these things) so I also whipped up a batch of carrot cake cupcakes. These were also stomped, I mean stamped, with a dinosaur footprint made of fondant.


And now, the contest and some stomping of your own (which has nothing to do with cake). Onlineshoes has asked me to host a giveaway for a $100 gift certificate to their store, which carries plenty of vegan friendly shoes including the super comfortable Earth brand shoes. The rules are simple. Just leave a comment describing your favorite pair of shoes that you have ever owned (mine are the shoes on my feet right now, forest green vegan flats). On February 16th at noon (CST) I will randomly select a winner, so be sure to check back and see if you've won! The contest is only open to those who currently reside in the US. Now stomp to it!

And you can triple your chances of winning if you head over to The Urban Housewife's blog and Awesome.Vegan.Rad , where they are both running the same giveaway!

Bienvenue dans la jungle, bébé!

Two of my closest friends will be welcoming a baby girl into this crazy jungle of a world in just about a month, so this past weekend I cohosted a co-ed baby shower in their honor. The mom-to-be's only request (besides minimizing the pink) was that I make a cake for the occasion. All that pressure! So I really didn't want to disappoint...

For this jungle-themed cake I made the raspberry blackout cake from VWAV and added fresh raspberries to the ganache layer in the middle. After frosting it with the thick chocolate ganache, I rolled out white fondant to cover the cake. The zebra stripes were cut freehand from black rolled fondant and I piped a pink buttercream border. But the funnest part of making this cake had to be molding the elephant topper from fondant by hand! It turned out so cute! I have a feeling I will be making more fondant figures in the future...
And just in case the cake went fast (which it did, once I could bring myself to cut into it), I also made a dozen lemon macadamia white chocolate chip cupcakes (VCTOTW) in zebra striped cupcake liners with a piped buttercream swirl, a pink fondant flower, and placed in these adorable cupcake cuppies from Etsy.
I wanted to give the expectant parents a few more personalized gifts than just what was on their registry. So I got out my dressmaking shears, some pretty fabric, and 6 plain, white, organic cloth diapers and turned them into a bib and four colorful burp cloths using tutorials from Chickpea Sewing Studio. I thought the Eiffel tower bib was especially appropriate since the baby daddy is French and they are expecting a little girl. These projects were both so easy!
Testing my beginner sewing skills a bit more... ever since Shellyfish posted about the animal friends fabric book from Natasha who runs Hanies Etsy shop, I knew I wanted to make one for the parents-to-be. They have two rescue dogs and mom is a vegetarian, so animals are a big part of their lives (not to mention the jungle-themed party)! Each page of this fabric book features a different animal, including a cat, elephant, dog, lion, and a chicken. Sewing those tight little curves was a bit stressful for me, luckily my mom was there to help out and we cheered each other on through the tough parts.
And since I enjoy decorating real cakes so much, I figured I would attempt my first diaper cake for the occasion. Since this wasn't just a girly shower and I didn't want the guys feeling too threatened, I kept it simple with a few different ribbon trims and a bow on top. You can't see it, but on the inside are two bottles filled with baby stuff. Not edible, but still fun to look at.
I can hardly wait to meet their little girl! Now I am trying to figure out what homemade foods to make so I can help stock their pantry, fridge, and freezer. After all, they're going to need something to eat during those late night feedings!

This post is a part of Work-In-Progress (W.I.P.) Wednesdays where I share some of my projects that serve as a creative outlet for my mostly left-brained mind. I may be posting the results of finished projects, actual W.I.Ps, or projects that are on my to-do list. Be sure to check out others that are posting their projects as well. Thanks to Shellyfish for inspiring us all!

VeganMoFo: Goals + Cake Hit & Wreck

Welcome, my friends, to the 2nd annual vegan MOnth of FOod. Over the next 31 days this blog, and many others in the vegan blogging universe, will step it up a notch and post about the wonderfulness that is vegan food at least 5 days a week.

Here are a few posts to look forward to:

• Texas Veggin' Out Days
• Veganizing Mamaw's Kitchen
• TV show themed dinner
• Veganized Presidential Cookie Bake-Off
• Daily eats in Palo Alto and Santa Cruz, CA (I'll be there for a week!)
• Top 10 inside the 610 loop (Houston vegan dining)
  

And since I couldn't leave you without some food in my first MoFo post... here is a recent cake wreck and a cake hit.

First, the cake wreck. For our one year wedding anniversary, I wanted to recreate the top tier of our wedding cake, with a few different embellishments (a fondant bow instead of buttercream roses). I baked a vanilla & chocolate marble cake in my mom's kitchen and took it home to frost with chocolate mousse and cover with fondant. Even though I felt rushed to get it done before the sun went down (this was back when we didn't have power), I was pleased with my first fondant bow and the ivy leaf border on the sides of the cake. Little did I know that the fondant would melt into a puddle in the heat of the night....
After that massive failure I needed the next cake to redeem myself. Success came in the form of macadamia ginger carrot cake from VWAV with cream cheese frosting (which was flavored with orange oil). The top border was piped to resemble carrots. Hopefully the cake was enough to impress Kristen (the birthday girl and our SOP president). But I'd have to say that the cutest thing was watching her son pick out all the macadamia nuts and then proceed to make a "gingerbread house" out of the remaining cake by piling leftover fruit and rice from dinner on top.
By the way, if you haven't made this carrot cake yet... you should!! The macadamias and crystallized ginger really make this cake stand out compared to other carrot cakes I've sampled.

More Vegan MoFo tomorrow!

A Real Mixed Bag

That was John's response when complaining I couldn't think of a post title and listing off everything in it.... works for me.

A good friend told me recently how much she enjoyed the Potato and Eggplant Moussaka from V-con and how perfect it would be for a potluck. I couldn't agree with her more! Go make this now if you haven't already.... or at least make that pine nut cream and start putting it on everything.
My favorite sushi place in town (Rickshaw) uses soy paper in place of nori for the veggie roll. So when I saw some in pretty colors at the grocery store (all using vegetable based dyes), I had to try it! I had a bit of a tough time getting the edges to stick. I think this might be my new homemade sushi wrapping standby, although John prefers nori, so we'll probably keep both on hand.
I finally got around to making the vegan omelette for one, except I doubled the recipe to make it for two. These were filled with sauteed creminis, swiss chard, onion, and topped with fresh heirloom tomato. I apparently need to work on my flipping skills, but this was delicious despite its appearance.
Two recent Society of PEACE events called for baked goods, so I pulled out my trusty and somewhat tattered copy of My Sweet Vegan and cranked up the oven. On the left, the Cookies and Creme Pound Cake, a fun twist on a very classic dessert. And my recent acquisition of butterscotch chips from Bazu led me to the butterscotch blondie recipe, where the chips were the perfect addition to these gooey bars.
And it seems most of my posts just aren't complete without a cake! This is my 3rd fondant covered cake, and I think it turned out pretty well. All of the decorations are made of fondant (except the pink centers on some of the flowers which are dragees). Inside, a red velvet cake with pecan praline buttercream. Perfect for the southern belle birthday girl...
This upcoming week will see some serious baking in my kitchen, and along with that comes lots of dishes.

Go Vegan Art Car

Saturday was the 21st annual Houston Art Car Parade, and this year there was a vegan-themed entry by Society of PEACE! We spent the last five weeks painting this car. I'll let the pictures speak mostly for themselves...
The view of the trunk, which says "Peace begins on your plate" and "We are not food, clothing, test subjects, or entertainment". Isn't the monkey cute with his little banana? And the mouse? And check out our vegan license plate!
A view of the front and top of the car. The car design was inspired by vegan artist Peter Max. We were so lucky to have an artist in our group to do the drawing, Michelle did an amazing job!
During the tailgate party, we took the opportunity to do some outreach and set up a vegan literature table.
A vegan close-up.... I love the strawberries!
And just so you know we didn't starve, here's some of our snacks.... chips, carrots, hummus, grapes, pasta salad ....
Tings, empanadas, and peanut butter cracker sandwiches.
Here we are driving in the parade! We heard so many positive comments, lots of "go vegan" shouts, and plenty of smiles, waves, and peace signs.
We handed out vegan postcards with fruit along the parade route. They went fast! Notice our Vegan fake tattoos (brought back from Seattle by by mom)? We also got shirts for the occasion with the art car design on front and our Society of PEACE logo on the back (view and purchase one here).
And more food, muffins! Almond quinoa and low fat banana muffins both from Vcon.
I promised you more cake, and here it is. This is my first fondant covered cake! I swirled green and blue fondant to match our Society of PEACE logo. We all returned to our place after the parade and got to enjoy this treat, as well as some air conditioning (no ac in the car and it was in the 90's!).
Inside shot! The cake was red velvet with a vanilla buttercream frosting. More about fondant in a later post...
John snapped this photo of me waving from the car during the parade. By the end of the day we all felt like we'd been in the vegan Miss America pageant!
Although our car didn't win any prizes (there's always next year...), we were happy knowing that we got out the "Go Vegan" message to over 200,000 Houstonians!