I am the queen of cupcakes. Or at least the duchess.

So I made my first-ever cupcakes over the weekend. I am pretty sure they were my first cupcakes, and if they weren’t, they were most definitely my first vegan cupcakes. I used to be scared as hell of cupcakes because they are so dainty and precious and nicely decorated, not like cookies that you can plop onto a pan and if they’re lumpy, you can say they have character and if no one likes them, it’s their loss. No more! Now I am all, “Bring it on, cupcakes! I can take you.”

Backstory: My parents had a Memorial Day cookout with various neighbors and family members, and my sister and her lover-man were visiting, so it was kind of an occasion. I asked my mom what to bring, and she whipped out the Tiramisu Cupcakes recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (she found it online—my mom is awesome, but not yet awesome enough to have her own vegan cookbook collection). I was like, “Really, woman? Those are some involved cupcakes.” So we compromised. I baked the cupcakes and made all the fixings, and we gutted/filled/frosted/decorated them together. That way, if they sucked, I only had to take half the blame. Red took pictures:





When we were finished, I was amazed by how good they looked. I was expecting some malformed, poorly frosted cupcakes, and they came out beautifully. I couldn’t wait to try one.

You will not be shocked to learn that they were ROCKIN’. These are epic cupcakes, y’all. They are sweet and boozy and filled with delicious cream cheese frosting. It was well worth the time we spent delicately hollowing them out, soaking them with Kahlua, and carefully placing those chocolate-covered espresso beans on top. Afterward, I wanted to fall asleep on a bed of clouds and dream of dancing biscotti while a choir of baby angels sang opera. I am a cupcake convert.

However! My dessert adventure was not over. As I was baking the cupcakes (this is the day before the filling/decorating extravaganza, in case you are creating a timeline of my exploits), I began to worry that guests would outnumber cupcakes and called my mom to ask her opinion on this important mathematical problem. She suggested that if I wanted to make something extra, I should go for it. As I like to show off the delights of vegan desserts, I made Caramel Walnut Bars from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar (they are supposed to have pecans, but I had a huge jar of walnuts and no pecans, so you know). Props to Red for making a crucial brown sugar run mid-project. They were much easier than the cupcakes, for which I was grateful, but no less decadent.


Two words can sum up these babies: SUGAR. BOMB. Holy tooth decay, that caramel is some serious stuff. Serious and awesome. (And of course all the walnuts = healthy, so you can have two!) Several minutes after I crushed a cupcake and one of those bars, all the sugar plowed through my brain and I spent the rest of the night bouncing around like I haven’t done since high school. Good thing I’d already done yoga.

So, to sum up: Dessert was a success (so was dinner because my mom made this pasta salad), cupcakes no longer intimidate me, and my dental hygienist will have her work cut out for her at my next visit.

Work people will eat anything.

That, dear readers, is a fact of life I have seen borne out time and again. Indian takeout that spent a tepid evening being warmed over Sterno? Sad-assed fruit salad left to disintegrate in its own juices? Birthday cake the texture of Styrofoam, the frosting falling off like chunks of drywall? I’ve seen the stampede occasioned by the office-wide email heralding free food. You have too.

Yet, despite the fact that my job is not the paradise I was promised all those years ago when I was struggling with long division, I do like my colleagues. And so when the sign-up sheet to bring snacks to our weekly Friday meeting came around, I picked a date and started planning. The fact that I can only rarely eat what they bring (thank you for the bunch of grapes, lady from two weeks ago!) doesn’t mean I shouldn’t knock their socks off when it’s my turn.

And so I planned. Oh, how I planned. Red can tell you how I nagged him about which recipes to pick. “Well, scones would be good, but I’ve never made scones before, and what if they don’t come out? Do I need those paper things for the muffins? If I do the blueberry coffee cake, can I have fruit in something else, or is that too much fruit? Should I make something with chocolate? What if I don’t make enough for everyone? What if they hate it?”

“They won’t hate it,” he assured me.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, they did not hate it. Angels sang, rainbows sprouted over the conference room door, and everyone got a happy sugar high first thing in the morning. Here’s how I did it:




That is Veganomicon’s Coconut-Lemon Bundt Cake. This is probably the easiest cake you will ever make, and it is certainly one of the tastiest. Slicing it was a bit of a pain, but Red saved the day with his skillful deployment of our bread knife. It’s very moist and a bit crumbly, but that’s part of the fun. I ran out of unsweetened coconut and had to make up the difference with sweetened, but we all know that feeding skeptical omnis requires extra fat and sugar. The full-fat coconut milk surely did the trick, as well. I am not ashamed to tell you that I tried to lick the inside of the empty can.



Here we have Blueberry Coffee Cake from Almost Vegan. I’ve been making this for years, and it’s always fantastic. I’ve actually begun halving the recipe, because it really does make a lot, but I put extra blueberries in. So, half the cake, all the berries! Win-win. The streusel-y topping is perfectly sweet and crunchy.


Finally, I made the Cranberry Orange Nut Muffins from Vegan Brunch. I was very nervous, because I can’t remember the last time I baked muffins and I was afraid they’d explode in the oven or something. I did have a brief “oh shit” moment when I realized that I’d used dried cranberries instead of fresh and worried that I’d ruined the muffins completely, but they were more resilient than my reading-comprehension fail. They were fabulous, and while I wish I’d gotten to nibble more than one, I’m sure I’ll make them again soon. I learned two things from baking these: 1) the batter smells exactly like amaretto and orange juice, which is one of my favorite drinks, and 2) your muffins get fluffier the longer you let the batter sit. It’s because the gluten relaxes, yo. Next time I’ll take a 15-minute break between mixing and baking, but for my first vegan muffins, I was impressed with myself.

After all that work and a few other close calls (emergency baking-powder run, scraping the bottom of the sugar jar), I was more than gratified by how much my coworkers enjoyed everything. I didn’t explicitly mention the vegan part, but the few who already knew were excited and curious, and the ones who didn’t seemed happy to be eating something other than, you know, doughnuts again. Even the guy who cracks on me about my “bird food” copped to being pleasantly surprised. Oh yes, he took seconds back to his office.

As of today, three coworkers have asked for the recipes. Vegan domination continues!