Pupcakes for Hairy Hounds Playground!

A few weeks ago I agreed to bake 200 (180 vegan + 20 gluten free vegan) cupcakes for the 5th Birthday Extravaganza of Hairy Hounds Playground, a dog daycare that my friend owns in Williamstown. They came out great despite making me slightly crazy (a big shout out to my BEM800 mixer that made life a lot easier), and were a hit at the party (so I'm told). Here's a few snaps of them both in progress and completed! If you're wondering, the fur is toasted coconut, the ears are licorice ropes cut in half, the eyes are vanilla frosting with non-dairy chocolate chips for pupils, and the noses are chocolate chips as well! Apologies for the photos not being top notch, I was pretty frazzled and amazed that I even remembered to photograph them!

Pupcakes without mouths!

Finished Pups

Aduki Vegan Bake-Off

Recently my husband T & I participated in the Aduki Vegan Bake-Off in Melbourne. It was held at the Kindness House on Brunswick Street, and I have to say I was really impressed with not only how many people showed up and competed, but also by how good all the food was!! After the judges tried each item, it was opened up to all the Vegan Vultures to sample for ourselves. People were hovering around tables, just waiting for the dishes to be brought back for tasting. We got to try samples of several dishes, and I must say there were some tasty sweets there!! I especially liked the Lamingtons!

So back to the competition... T baked a Sweet Onion & Eggplant Pizza, and I made Peach Crumble Cupcakes.

We both won our respective categories (Savoury & Cupcakes) and I was lucky enough to win the Grand Prize as well!! My prize was a gift basket of lovely vegan goodies, a very cute apron & potholder, some recipe books, and a cool comic book wallet! I obviously am thrilled and definitely have had my baking confidence boosted a bit :)

Mmm Vegan Cupcakes

Ok so I've already run into a bit of writer's block when thinking of what to post. So I figured I would start off with maybe some photos of cupcakes (who doesn't like them?) that I was selling at a market at the Edinburgh Castle in Brunswick a few weeks ago. They are all vegan, and all awesome!


From the back there is:
Iced Tea Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese frosting, garnished with mint and a straw, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with a Cinnamon Glaze,
Chocolate Cupcakes with Oreo Frosting and an Oreo on top,
and
Vanilla Cupcakes stuffed with Cherry Jam, topped with Coconut Almond Icing, Chocolate Shavings, and more Cherry Jam!

The sun was really strong all day (which made my amateur picture taking difficult!) so I could only keep out this many at a time while I hid the rest in an aluminium tray under the table in the shade! Its hard to say how many I sold because we traded a few with other vendors and ate some ourselves as well :) Overall it was a really fun day just hanging out, drinking, and looking at other people's wares.