Baking Fail

This post is a week overdue but I've been running around like a mad woman all week. I suck at getting this blog going.

When I was an omni and a vegetarian I was always good at baking and used to do it alot, but in the past 2 years I think I have baked a total of 4 times(mainly because I was living with my [ex]bf and our oven was broken, I cooked in a toaster oven, not fun.) And the times I did bake were all before I was vegan. This is my first fall as a vegan, and fall is when I do alot of cooking and baking(asides from the 2 years mentioned) I decided that it was about time that I get back into it. Of course I couldn't just start out with something quick and easy like cookies to boost my confidence. Nope. I had to start with cupcakes and pumpkin brownies. Big mistake.

The cupcakes I made were the vegan vanilla cupcakes from Crazy About Cupcakes. I followed the directions exactly with the exception of adding a handful of confetti sprinkles to make them "Funfetti" cupcakes, so I don't know where I went wrong but they came out like dense little pound cakes. They were heavy too. The flavor was o.k. but nothing I would serve to anyone else. I also made the vegan frosting in the same cookbook which called for cooking some of the ingredients together. I think I let it boil for 1 second too long because instead of a smooth creamy frosting I ended up with a lumpy bowl of what looked like man juice, you know what I'm talking about...... That had to go in the trash. I also tried veganizing a regular frosting recipe subbing vegan butter for dairy butter and soy milk for cow. This frosting ended up just like a glaze, I beat in a ton more confectioner sugar to get more of a frosting consistency but once it was piped on to one of the cupcakes it went from a perfect little spiral of frosting to a melted goopy mess all over the counter... I think part of what my problem was that I used Smart Balance Light, according to some peeps over at the PPK forums, Earth Balance is the way to go when baking and make frosting.

The recipe for Pumpkin Brownies was the one from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. Another fail, but only a semi-fail. The brownie batter tasted amazing and cooked up nicely too, they were fudgy and moist. The pumpkin layer however was a mess. It was really liquidy when I put it and and it stayed that way throughout the cooking. I am not giving up on that recipe though, I will try again, and I will succeed.

After all of that, I felt like I was not meant to bake as a vegan. But I had already offered a fellow PPKer to donate some baked goods for a bake sale at a craft fair that benefits the Milton Animal League so I couldn't give up. The bake sale is tomorrow so of course I waited until today to try baking again. Luckily this time I used different recipes and everything came out delicious. I'll save that for another post though. And I actually took pictures of stuff this time!