vegan vanilla cakes with vegan raspberry cream cheese frosting! yuuuum! the cake recipe is here, & for the frosting:

Vegan Raspberry Cream “Cheese” Frosting
1/2 cup nonhydrogenated vegan margarine (softened, i used earth balance sticks)
1/2 cup vegan cream cheese (softened, i used tofutti)
4 cups confectioners sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon coconut extract (optional)
approx 8 tsp of raspberry preserves (to taste, really..)
a few drops of pink food coloring (optional)
1 tbsp soymilk (optional)

cream together margarine, flavor extracts, preserves, and cream cheese until combined. add the confectioners sugar in 1/2 cup batches and mix until smooth and creamy. Add soymilk, if needed, to make the icing smoother, or to help it mix together properly. keep tightly covered and refridgerated until ready to use.

my frosting was a bit more thin than i would have liked, so i kept adding more confectioners sugar to make it more fluffy, but then i couldnt taste the raspberry enough… so i just ended up with way too much frosting that still wasnt fluffy enough. Thats why i just iced the cakes with a dollop of frosting, instead of a swirl (incase it spread out too much over time). I’m sure I’ll figure out how to make it fluffier next time (any suggestions?). also, I made my boyfriend help model my cupcakes, & he is a good little cupcake model… minus a few pictures! haha. ♥

this past weekend, I took a trip out to frederick, Maryland for my first time. I didn’t really explore much, becuase I was only there for about 1 1/2 hours (i got a late start… hey, I like to sleep!)… but I did check out the two organic markets I’d heard about.

These two markets are literally within 5 minutes of each other, on the same road… so that made it easy for me. On my way there, i found a road called english muffin way which made me smile. :) I love finding cute road names like that.

I went to MOM’s(My Organic Market) first. Apparently this place is a small chain, and i think they might get one in hagerstown in the next year or so. that would RULE, because right now, there isn’t really much around here. There is a Martins with a larger organic section, and one of my co-workers told me about a small heath food store near my work, that I will have to check out soon. I always pass farmers selling their produce on the way to work, too… so it would be cool to start supporting them, and getting fresh produce that is locally grown. Anyways, I really liked MOM’s. the thing i liked best about it was their selection. I was able to finally find some Veganrella brand cheese substitute that my friend Jess would speak highly about. Also, this is the only place i could find the brand of soymilk that i like the best (pacific). They also had a huge tea selection (as you can see above, pretty much that whole picture is the section of boxed teas! it stops about where the lady is at!), including a ton of fair trade tea to choose from! I also enjoyed the bulk tea options, too!

Next, I went to Common Market, and while I didn’t see the veganrella or soymilk that I was scoping out, they did carry some loose leaf strawberry green tea! i had drank that a lot in houston, and was worried I wouldnt be able to find it elsewhere! They also had raspberry green tea which is really good! The thing i really like about CM is that they function as a local cooperative, too! hopefully organic food markets will expand more into hagerstown in the near future! I’d love that.

recipe from bittersweet blog! I came across this recipe, and then remembered my friend heidi had attempted some rootbeer cupcakes when I went over to her house once. they were good, but we all agreed that they didn’t taste too strong on the rootbeer flavor. I thought that this recipe might work better, considering it calls for rootbeer extract. I ordered some root beer extract online from Zatarains, and when it arrived yesterday, i got busy. First, we tried to make some homemade rootbeer (which is what the extract is for, in the first place). I followed the instructions on the bottle, and it turned out ok, but was a bit flat. I think that’s because I added the sugar last, which it fizzed really big each time i added some (hello, 11th grade chemistry class). I did some research and I think I’ve figured out why mine was flat. I skipped a step (or moreso, didn’t know about it; step #3, here). I also used club soda hoping to acheive the right fizziness, which the recipe called for ’sparkling water’… but it seems like the website that talks about fermentation says that most poeple use boiling water, and then ferment it to make the carbonation. interesting. not bad, but it was no IBC.

Second, I tried these cupcakes. They turned out well, but I was still a bit dissapointed. STILL not rootbeer-y enough for my taste. and since it wasnt really strong on the root beer taste, they just arent appetizing to me. I mean, root beer cupcake. c’mon. I think maybe they would be better if I started with a vanilla cupcake base that was way strong on the vanilla, and then doubled the amount of RB extract I use. a vanilla cupcake with a hint of root beer sounds good; or perhaps, vanilla cupcakes with root beer buttercream? I might try a second attempt. I do have two bottles of extract now :P

vegan root beer cakes
1 Cup Rootbeer Soda (be careful! Not all root beers are vegan, since some contain honey.)
1 Teaspoon Apple Cider Vinegar
3/4 Cup Sugar
1/3 Cup Canola Oil
1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2 Teaspoons Rootbeer Extract
1 1/3 Cups Flour
3/4 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
Pinch of Salt

Frosting
1 Cup Vegetable Shortening
3 Cups Confectioner’s Sugar
2 Tablespoons Vanilla Soymilk
2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract