Stuff I've been doing + a duck photo

Sorry blog, I neglected you once again. Here's what I've been up to since my last post:














Chocolate cupcake and almond rosewater cupcake.

Tinkering around with rose-inspired frosting designs. I've been spying cupcakes frosted to look like roses 'round Flickr and it's been driving me crazy. I really couldn't figure out how those bakers did it! After a few experiments I finally broke the code. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a super baker's secret, but what the hell. You basically use a 5-point star tip, start frosting from the center and work your way out. So simple yet so stunning.


Missing old childhood food. I don't miss the dead animal flesh mind you, I just miss the familiarity of eating a burger sandwich, using an actual bun, filled with ketchup and mustard. I took this photo about 2 months ago and uploaded it in Flickr 3 weeks ago. As of this post it's received 99 views. Hmmm. I guess vegans do miss familiar food. This is a burger bun filled with 3 vegan burger patties, a couple of lettuce leaves, and a good dose of mango vinaigrette. I know, not conventional, but it went pretty well. The vinaigrette was a version of this recipe but with cane vinegar subbing for the calamansi juice and olive oil subbing for the sesame oil. The burger patties are a version of Vegan with a Vengeance's.


Promoting vegan cupcakes to mainstream media. I sent a box of these cupcakes to a well known local food magazine for a pictorial. They actually found me on Multiply! So so tickled. Anyway, the magazine edition with the cupcakes should come out sometime in the 4th quarter. This box has 6 flavors.

Top, L-R: red velvet, chai latte, lemony.
Bottom, L-R: banoffee, carrot cake, almond rosewater.

I sent the same box to a vegetarian restaurant in the Makati CBD called Corner Tree Cafe. They seem to like 'em, they've been ordering every week for their customers. If any of you readers are around Jupiter St. in Makati, hit up Corner Tree Cafe! It's near Aristocrat.

(I also sent another box of cupcakes to a lifestyle magazine targeted to Southern Manilenyos, not pictured. Well received too!)


Cupcake-catering for my lolo's / grandfather's 95th birthday party. My dad asked me to make cupcakes for giveaways for guests. In the span of 7-8 hours I was able to come up with 100+ cupcakes, packaged in these beautiful silver cardboard-plastic boxes. They looked smashing, if I do say so myself. I just cringe when I think about the amount of waste these generated. I hate using plastic...

Anyway, here are some closeups:














Red velvet cupcakes.














Banoffee cupcakes. Banana cupcakes topped with coffee buttercream and shaved dark chocolate.














Lemony cupcakes.

I can't resist some cupcake porn:


Closeup of a red velvet cupcake.

I'm really loving the foil cupcake liners. They're pretty costly but they look so professional. They go really well with the silver boxes, and they don't absorb moisture from the cake (vs. paper liners). I like that they hide cupcake batter spills too!

I also can't resist a gratuitous photo of cute animals:

I found these guys trying to cross a major road in my village as I was heading out to Sunday lunch. I quickly snapped a photo of them before herding them back to the creek from whence they came. I'm glad to report that no one got hurt! Motorists actually halted for these cuties.

That's about it, so I've been quite busy. Hopefully my next post won't be too far off.

Who needs an indoor grill...

When you've got a cake rack and a stove?

Cake rack as indoor grill and cake rack as cake rack

I came across this nifty idea last Saturday when i had a roasted vegetable dilemma. My oven takes forever to heat up, especially when things are being cooked on the stove. The stove was being used a lot that time... And I had to bake some zucchini and bell peppers quick. I have a toaster oven but with the volume of vegetables to cook I knew it would take even longer.

As with typical Filipino kitchens, my family has 2 stoves. One of the stoves wasn't being used last Saturday. And I had a wire cake rack. I'm sure I heard about this idea from somewhere, probably from Rachel Ray. Anyway, it was a good thing I decided to grill the vegetables. Not only do "grilled vegetables" sound better than "roasted vegetables", they cook a lot faster and taste a lot better. Roasting a pepper would probably take 20 minutes with frequent turning which is quite a pain... you always have to brave the oven heat when you open the door.

Check out the fire action! Love it.

You still have to do the frequent turning thing with your DIY grill though. It's not so bad because the heat isn't as strong. And, grilling a pepper would take about 10 minutes.

If you're not in the know of how to grill a pepper, rub the pepper with oil (preferably olive), salt, and pepper. Brush the cake rack with oil as well and place it on top of your burner. My cake rack is probably about 10x10 inches and it fit perfectly. Turn on your stove to about medium heat. The heating up doesn't take too long.

Place the peppers on the rack, on top of the flames. I only had to cook 2 peppers, you could probably fit 3 with all 3 getting enough heat / fire. Turn frequently until each side is blackened. Once cooked, place the black peppers in a large bowl and cover with a plate. Let them cool until cool enough to handle. Remove the black skin with your fingers.














So, on to the zucchini. You could grill 4 slices of zucchini at one go. Slice at a diagonal, maybe 1/2 inch thick. Brush each side with oil, salt and pepper. Grill at a diagonal as well, maybe 3-5 minutes per side.

I used these vegetables for a couscous salad which I will blog about soon!

The nightmare before Christmas, aka pre-Christmas baking porn

Remember when I was on an insane baking rampage the few weeks before Christmas? Well I was reviewing my food porn photos and unearthed these... and remembered I hadn't blogged about 'em yet. 

Finally got myself a real cake pedestal / turner instead of the overturned-salad bowl-and-plate I used to rely on. Frosting cakes on the turner was a dream! They turned out more professional looking and the cake wasn't in danger of falling off the bowl. Quite difficult to frost cupcakes on this though 'cause you can't stop the thing from swiveling, so for cupcakes I still recommend the overturned bowl.

A 2-layer chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream and shaved dark chocolate on top. I was able to source some vegan dark chocolate at the baking supply store and am very happy with how chic my cakes turn out to be.

A 2-layer vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream and dark chocolate curls. A favorite of PETA.

True blue brownies, unadulterated with the usual banana yumminess. While chocolate purists may prefer their brownies 100% chocolate, I prefer mine with banana.

A successful experiment! Mango cashew cream cake -- a 2-layer mango cashew cream cake with vanilla buttercream, topped with fresh slices of mango. Thank God this country has the best tasting mangoes in the whole world (I'm not kidding) and that they're available year round.

Box of Fall-inspired cupcakes: chai latte cupcakes with spiced buttercream and carrot cake cupcakes with walnut-studded cinnamon buttercream.

I really love this close up photograph of my chai latte mini cupcakes.

Co-vegan brother #5 finally asked me to help him bake some cupcakes to bribe his teachers and classmates with. He lives with a vegan baker and never asks her to bake anything for him. I made him peanut butter cupcakes and a lemon cake for his birthday and I don't think he even touched them! Baaah, boys and their non-existent sweet tooth. This guy reverse-psychology'd me into helping him make vanilla and chocolate cupcakes in the midst of my baking pandemonium! First he asks me if I could help him, then I say I'm up to my ears in cupcakes, then he says "Nevermind," guilting me into fulfilling my job as ate (older sister) and kitchen activist:

Quite frankly bro #5 is a pretty terrific froster. These designs are all his own. I heard that his classmates and teachers told him they looked bakery-bought.

Close up of vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream, dusted with cocoa powder and topped with shaved dark chocolate.

Chocolate cupcakes with pecan-studded chocolate buttercream and dusted with confectioner's sugar.

How can omnivores think that vegans live a poor dessert-less existence? Seriously?

So among the stuff I baked I also had to make lemon cupcakes -- I ended up with 2 extra mini lemons which I've juxtaposed with my messy kitchen.

What your eyes don't see is:

I literally used all the dishes in my kitchen...

A present, baking mania, and cookie porn

I'm the kind of person who loooves getting kitchen things for presents. Seriously. You can get me mixing bowls for Christmas and I'd love them. One of my aunts / titas got me a y-peeler for my birthday -- a peeler! I love it because it's so much easier to use than a conventional peeler.

My other aunt, who has been under a spell since I baked her a box of cupcakes, got me a microplane. I've been eying this baby for quite some time but didn't have the heart to drop P850 / $17 on one. It's nice when you've got family that knows what you want for your birthday.

I love this microplane, seriously. I get twice more zest per lemon than I do with a conventional zester. And there isn't that danger of accidentally zesting your own skin. And, you don't have to chop up the zest to get 'em nice and tiny so they get evenly distributed in the batter. I tested this baby on a batch of lemony cupcakes I made for an order and I am a convert.

And speaking of cupcakes...

So PETA has been a regular client so far, and they ordered 2 boxes of cupcakes for Appetite Magazine, a local food magazine. PETA has a food and health section in Appetite which is so nice because you don't often get to see veganism being promoted in mainstream media these days. And oh man I've been in such a craze baking all weekend, and this is one of the boxes of cupcakes they gave Appetite. Behold: banana split chocolate cupcakes with banocolate buttercream and lemony cupcakes with lemon buttercream. Let's all pray that they like 'em...

banana split chocolate cupcakes with banocolate buttercream

I've also been trying to shoot more food photographs. I find that cookies (and muffin tops) are hard to take photos of, because they're just blobs of brown batter. Cupcakes shine on their own because of the pretty frosting, and so do cakes as well. But cookies... They need to be prettified with props and they take awhile to shine. Poor cookies... They're not the prettiest girls on the block. On the left are banana oat muffin tops, on the right, peanut butter oat cookies.

Who needs a cake pedestal...: Vegan MoFo #19

If you've got a huge salad bowl in your kitchen?

(vanilla minicupcakes with vanilla buttercream on my fancy cake pedestal)

A decent inexpensive ceramic cake pedestal cannot be found here in Manila, and buying one from abroad (I did spy some lovely ones when I was in Sydney a few months ago) seemed too complicated with it being too bulky for hand carrying and all... What's a baker to do?

Behold the humble salad bowl. My mom got this ceramic bowl as a Christmas gift and it's been pretty handy. My family likes to use it to serve huge amounts of pasta, and for salad too, of course. I've revolutionized the utilization of this salad bowl and used it as a trusty cake pedestal, or in this case, a cupcake pedestal. Let me tell you, you'll be thankful you used it while frosting baked goods - it is an ergonomic wonder. It brings the baked goods about chest level high (I put the salad bowl on my kitchen island and its table is about elbow high) so you don't have to bend down for your frosting tip to reach whatever you're planning to frost, preventing scoliosis and other back problems.

All you need is a dinner plate sitting on top of an overturned salad bowl and you're ready to frost. If you've got, say, 90 minicupcakes to frost, I suggest putting about 15 minis on one dinner plate each. For regular cupcakes, it's 6 per plate. When plate A of cupcakes are frosted, remove from the bowl and replace with plate B. I usually put my cakes on cake boards, and these sit perfectly well on the salad bowl with no help of a dinner plate.

In terms of actual baked goods display in buffets, I recommend that only cupcakes be displayed in a plate on top of the bowl. I suggest the plate be taped on the bowl so it doesn't accidentally topple over. I haven't tested this out though!

(semi-frosted vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream, on a cake board, on my salad bowl)