Vegan - - Page 6

by C. Christy Concrete

Cupcake Rampage: Trashy Cupcakes

_{Keep eating those clown cupcakes, and you’ll turn into a clown.}

We’re a pretty loose group here at Endless Simmer. Although I’ve yet to visit the corporate headquarters in New York, I hear it’s pretty swanky. Hot and cold running microbrews from the bathroom faucets, life-size voodoo dolls of dozens of celebrity chefs skewered with huge Renaissance Fair lances, and a giant chocolate fountain that rises up three stories into the atrium above the lobby. I wonder why they haven’t invited me to see it yet.

Oh well, it’ll keep. It’s just a thrill and an honor to be a member of the team and do my part for the ball club.

Anyway, for the most part I think I’ve managed to maintain the Cupcake Rampage gold standards so far: didactic journalism, spotlighting mature flavors for sophisticated palates, and trying to explain as much why something happens as how it’s supposed to happen. After last week, however, I may have hit the wall. It wasn’t the new directions I was taking my writing, or the tangle of coming up with something pretty and practical every week, or even the dilemma of what do to with all those goddamn cupcakes.

No, gentle readers; I was done in by frosting.

Last week’s Aztec xocolatl cupcakes were a byproduct of another five dozen cupcakes I baked as a favor to a friend and her party for the neighborhood kids. (My first paid gig!) Now, even though it might sound nightmarish, making fifty-plus cupcakes really isn’t that big a deal, even if they’re different styles and flavors; you just get into assembly-line mode and crank them out. Making a different kind of frosting to go with each kind of cupcake, however, now that’s a pain in the ass. The worst kind of crash is a sugar crash, and nothing has more sugar than homemade frosting.

So you see, I needed something simple this week. Nothing terribly fancy or high-maintenance or with too many ingredients, but still something that encapsulated the essence of Endless Simmer: a little class, a little flash, a little trash. Since going vegan I’ve kind of left my trashy food tendencies behind, but just because something is vegan doesn’t mean it’s good for you. (Hel-lo, vegan cupcakes? It’s still a cupcake!) So, what’s classier than a vegan cupcake, flashier than a new cupcake tree, (thanks, Diana!) and trashier than the tops of said cupcakes adorned with the unnatural accouterments of American breakfast cereal? Nothing, I says! Nothing!

Just whip up a batch of your favorite cupcake batter (I made gluten-free vanilla, because I’m still working on my GF skillz) and sprinkle on your favorite brand of sugarbombs before chucking them in the oven. I used Cocoa Puffs, Trix, (gluten-free!) and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Airy, crunchy cereal works best because they don’t sink; marshmallows tend to melt and make the cupcake all gross. (Extra trash points!) Once they’re baked, the cereal is also going to be in direct contact with the cupcake itself, so the topping will start to get soft after a few hours.

What’s that you say? Oh, you don’t think breakfast cereal is trashy enough, do you? No matter how much high fructose corn syrup it’s been soaked in, how nutritionally deficient it may be, how laden with GMOs, artificial colorings, and hidden sodium it is? Well then, let’s just go back downstairs into the lab and see if we can’t find something a little more…disturbing for you, shall we?

Stare into the face of horror after the jump, if you dare…

by Maids

Paul and Yoko Break the Ice — Over Food

Press people the world over are in quite a lather about the historic reconciliation of Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono. The two frenemies were brought to the bargaining table around (what else?) food.

Yoko and PaulMac reunited just to plug the Meat Free Mondays global campaign. Okay fine, they probably reconciled eons ago; I don’t really follow the Yoko v. Beatles feud, I just know I’m on her side. I personally have always loved the eccentric, feisty, ethereal Yoko more than John Lennon’s band members. If she can stomach PaulMac to join him in promoting the idea of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by reducing our consumption of domesticated critters, then more power to her.

Paul and Yoko’s idea is to slowly pull the meat-eaters of the world into the land of vegetarianism by urging people to go meat-free one day a week. The Meat Free Mondays site is chock full of recipes I need to try (as if I can follow a recipe…), food porn, and (oh yeah) information about the effect of excessive meat-eating on the environment. Like PETA, MFM also tries to lure us into vegetarianism with a list of celebs who don’t dig on flesh (Judi Dench, who knew?)

What do you think, ESers? Are you carnivores willing to give up one day of meat to save the planet from extinction? And what about you hard-line veggies? Are Paul and Yoko sell-outs for telling eaters they can just give up meat once a week instead of going the full monty? And yea or nay on Yoko’s hat?

(Pics: Frank Barratt/Getty Images via Black is the New Black and Sydney Morning Herald)

in Celebs / Trends / Veggie 5 comments

by C. Christy Concrete

Cupcake Rampage: Aztec Xocolatl Cupcakes

_{¡Ai ya! ¡Las magdalenas del monstruo están sobrando la ciudad!}

I have a problem with chocolate. Not an addiction kind of problem, it’s more like the complex gauntlet of feelings a married couple goes through leading up to a separation or estrangement. My problem isn’t with chocolate per se, but rather the lofty pedestal it’s been placed upon as food of the gods. The appeal of chocolate has become so pervasive and universal as to make it ubiquitously available, which has invariably led to a massive spectrum of quality, the majority of which have been dulled and flattened to appease the less sophisticated Western palate. Most commercially available chocolate shares the same stigma as boxed macaroni and cheese; so many people are used to the low balled version that the “real thing” would taste almost alien to them.

Now, I’m not trying to be a snot-nosed foodie and say that you haven’t tried real chocolate until you’ve tasted a raw cacao bean or anything, but I’m also of the mind that the more often chocolate is utilized or abused in products, the less special it becomes. This is why I don’t bake with chocolate very often, not because I don’t like it, but because it’s such a mysterious, multidimensional, powerful ingredient that I want to make sure I use its magic properly.

Then again, the ancient Aztecs didn’t quite think that way when it came to their version of hot chocolate. Before that asshole Cortez came along and wrecked everything, they were known to guzzle gallons of what they called xocolatl, (pronounced “HOCK-a-lottle”) and since they didn’t know from sugar, they tempered its natural astringency with hot peppers and other spices. The recipe that follows isn’t an attempt to recreate that brew with any degree of authenticity, but rather an experiment to see what other kinds of personality traits can be brought out of something that usually tastes the same every time you eat it, like chocolate.

in Desserts / Endless Cupcakes / Recipe 4 comments

by C. Christy Concrete

Cupcake Rampage: Gluten-Free Chocolate Mint Cupcakes

_{a. k. a. Bunraku cupcakes. Get it? Of course you do.}

I know several people who have the bad luck to suffer from celiac disease, a disorder of the autoimmune system that manifests itself as varying degrees of wheat intolerance. The impact of this affliction is that they can’t enjoy a lot of the foods that some of us might take for granted; breads, beer, cupcakes, etc.

Vegans and celiacs are like kindred spirits in this sense; we take forever to shop because we inspect every ingredient list in the grocery store aisles, we don’t make any friends at restaurants when we viciously interrogate hapless servers, and we both suffer when we screw up, albeit in different ways. For most vegans, the lifestyle is a conscious choice; celiacs don’t really have a say in the way their bodies behave.

Baking gluten-free isn’t as difficult as it’s been made out to be, although it does require a few extra ingredients and involves an additional step or two. Most gluten-free recipes will call for the use of two or three different kinds of gluten-free flours. The reason for this is that while wheat flour is, for the most part, bland and flat; flours made from other grains and seeds each have their own distinctive flavors and textures that can easily overwhelm and throw off the final result. A good example is corn flour, which has a very identifiable taste and works great for corn muffins or tortillas, but not so much if you’re trying to utilize other flavors, like chocolate.

Recipe after the jump.

in Desserts / Endless Cupcakes / Recipe 9 comments

by C. Christy Concrete

Cupcake Rampage: Frosting 101

_{Mini vegan orange vanilla cupcakes with orange buttercream, adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World.}

Even though I’m only a recent arrival to the home baking scene, I’m an even more recent convert to the merits of frosting. Like any newbie fumbling and grasping about for a culinary bra clasp, I started out with a battery of failures, but once I got the basics and the wheels came off, an iconoclastic cockiness set in. Paper liners? We don’t need no stupid cupcake diapers! We’ll bake these bad boys commando! Sprinkles? Say “sprinkles” again! I dare you! I double dare you! Frosting? Pah! Frosting is the opiate of the baking world! People’s tongues have become numb with sugar and can no longer appreciate the subtlety of pure, unadulterated, naked cupcake meat!

Of course, I learned my lesson. Paper liners don’t just ease cleanup, they can provide a color accent and give people that Christmas morning feeling of unwrapping a gift just for them. Sprinkles and other garnishes may be little more than pieces of flair on the uniform of a baked good, but remember, half of your score comes from presentation. And frosting? Well, if cupcakes make the world go around, then frosting is the axis upon which it spins.

Making your own frosting is one of the easiest things in the world to do. While it isn’t necessarily cheaper than store-bought frosting, it does allow you to control the quality and quantity of the ingredients that go into it. My basic guide, after the jump…

in Desserts / Endless Cupcakes / Recipe 9 comments

by Maids

We Can Have the Mango!

Saturday Night Live – Mango: Garth Brooks

Just like Garth Brooks, Romeo can’t have the Mango. He used to be able to consume the divinely delicious fruit to his heart’s delight, but he OD’ed on mango during a tropical hiking trip some years back (in which at every pit stop he picked mangoes from low-hanging branches, peeled and devoured them.) Legend has it that on that journey Romeo ate a full 15 mangoes in the space of 12 hours. Romeo’s lovely face swelled up to twice its original size, he ran a dangerously high fever, and he developed painful blisters inside his mouth. Some thought it was an allergic reaction to the mango. Others suspected Romeo was the victim of a chupacabra or a voodoo curse.

Unfortunately, it was the Mango. Romeo has tried mango and mango products since and always suffers similarly grotesque results (never quite as bad as the first time). Out of deference to Romeo’s sensitivity I do not partake in mangoes around him (I even forgo that nectar-of-the-gods commonly known as the mango lassi in subcontinental restaurants when we dine together) and I restrain myself from preparing dishes featuring mangoes in our kitchen. Ah, the sacrifices we make for love.

But when I was invited to an island-themed potluck recently, on a night when Romeo was otherwise occupied, I couldn’t resist the temptation of the mango. I CAN have the Mango damnit, and so can you! Sorry Romeo ?! (And sorry Liza, I know how much you hate it when a fruit is the MVI of a dish.)

The easy, delicious, and refreshing mango salsa recipe for the rest of us after the jump….

in Drinks / Recipe / Veggie 8 comments

by C. Christy Concrete

Cupcake Rampage: Hummingbird Cakes

_{I know what you’re thinking: Hummingbird cake? WTF? That’s okay, I’d never heard of it, either.}

You could call this the third leg of a twisted Triple Crown of Southern-style baking, following the Kentucky Derby day mint julep cupcakes and the beloved red velvet ones before that. To carry the analogy further, if red velvet is Man o’ War, and mint juleps are Secretariat, then hummingbird cake would be Seabiscuit.

Get it? Of course you do.

Hummingbird cake is another creation peculiar to the Deep South with an even more convoluted and obscure history. Also called “granny cake” and “cake-that-doesn’t-last,” some sources claim the original recipe hails from Australia, where it’s also popular for some reason, while others say it started in Jamaica and was bastardized into its current incarnation along the way. The oldest recorded appearance of hummingbird cake is 1978, when it appeared as a reader-submitted recipe in Southern Living magazine. However, Jamaican newspapers have mentioned something called “Doctor bird cake” as early as a decade before that. The national bird of Jamaica is the red-billed streamertail hummingbird, also called the Doctor bird because its long tail feathers and top-hat-like crest makes it look…kind of, sort of, maybe if you squint and pretend it has a tiny birdie stethoscope around its neck…like the nappily-dressed Victorian doctors of old.

What all this has to do with a cake, no one seems to know. The Jamaica story is a stretch, at best. It could just be called what it is because this cake is so sweet, thanks to sugar from three separate ingredients, even a hummingbird would be attracted to it. However it came to be, the recipe is after the jump…

in Desserts / Endless Cupcakes / Recipe 8 comments