Carrot Cake Cupcake

The other day, I picked up the book, VEGAN CUPCAKES Take Over the World, after reading a bunch of great reviews. Today I tried my first recipe ~ Carrot Cake Cupcakes. (Clark brought home a ten pound bag of carrots today. Have you ever seen 10 pounds of carrots? We'll be orange by next week) Back to my cupcakes. They were really delicious. Clark had to have two for dessert and said he could mow through them. Kids loved them too.



Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

2/3 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 t baking soda
1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/4 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t ground ginger (i didn't add)
2/3 c sugar
1/3 c vegetable oil
1/3 c soy yogurt (plain or vanilla)
1 t vanilla
1 c finely grated carrots
1/4 c chopped walnuts (i didn't add)
1/4 c raisins (we added about 1/3 c)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line muffin tin with 12 cupcake liners

2. In a medium mixing bowl, mix together sugar, vegetable oil, yogurt and vanilla. Sift in the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, spices) and mix until smooth. Fold in carrots, walnuts and raisins)

3. Spray the cupcake liners with non-stick baking spray. Fill the liners two-thirds full. Bake for 26 to 28 minutes, until toothpick inserted through the center of one comes out clean

4. Once fully cooled, top generously with cream cheese frosting

Notes: I didn't spray my liners since I don't have baking spray, but they came out fine. Also, I think it'd be better to only make 10 or 11 cupcakes. A couple were kinda small.

Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

1/4 c margarine, softened (we use nucoa)
1/4 c vegan cream cheese, softened (we use tofutti)
2 c confectioners' sugar
1 t vanilla extract

Directions

Cream together margarine and cream cheese until just combined. Use a handheld mixer to whip while adding the confectioners sugar in 1/2 c batches. Mix smooth and creamy, then mix in the vanilla.

Our Train Table - part two

Today daddy did more work on the train table - Pictures will tell the story...

Daddy having WAY TOO MUCH fun with his miter saw. I think
he must have made at least 10 extra cuts just to play with his new mitre saw.

You can see the lake and part of the framing.

My baby got a shiner running into the corner of the train table
(It looks much worse tonight. I'm wondering what he'll look like tomorrow)

Daddy and the kids putting the tracks together. Notice the missing side? I don't know what happened, cuz there were four sides when I last checked (I'm thinking extra cut on the miter saw) - we need to finish next weekend

Here they are playing with the train set.
Tracks still aren't glued down, but daddy only
put in a couple of ramps so it wouldn't fall so much.

Our Train Table - part one

Santa gave the kids a train set for Christmas this year and we've (I've) decided train tracks need to be GLUED together. I'm not sure what kid has a good time with a train that isn't glued together. The pieces constantly come apart especially the parts that are at a higher level. Very FRUSTRATING for mommy. So today daddy decided to build a train table so we can glue the track down and have a super fun time playing trains. Today was part one of our project.

After Daddy cut the table and sanded it down,
we all helped paint

I gave the kids stern directions
NOT TO GET PAINT on the patio

Look what I did!
And when I tried to clean it off it got much worse! UGH.
Now Clark will be reminding me for a long time.

After we painted a couple coats of green,
Daddy and Bailey added a lake in the corner

Is it springtime?
Look at our beautiful nectarine blossoms.

The BEST Sugar Cookies!

AND they are VEGAN! Whoo hoo! Yesterday we baked some really good sugar cookies and today we iced them. They are so good I don't think anyone would be able to tell they are vegan. And the icing is great too - not tasting - it's just icing, but nice coverage and it dries hard - not crunchy hard, but hard enough so you can bag them in those cute cellophane bags for the holidays and they won't stick.

While Bailey was at school today,
Gregory and I iced most of the cookies

When Bailey got home, she iced a few herself.
She really got the hang of it quickly!

PERFECT VEGAN SUGAR COOKIE RECIPE

This makes about 36 cookies.

1 cup margarine
3 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 whole egg replacements (Ener-G)
1/4 cup tofu cream cheese (Tofutti)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and sugar. Stir in the egg replacements and vanilla. Gradually add the flour, baking powder and tofu cream cheese. You may have to use your hands at this point to finish the mixing. Form the dough into a long loaf and wrap in cellophane. Refrigerate for a couple hours. (NOTE: I creamed the tofu cream cheese with the margarine first)

2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease the cookie sheets or use a non-stick foil.

3. On a lightly floured surface (I rolled it on parchment paper taped to our counter), roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Place about 1 inch apart cookie on sheets.

4. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes in the preheated oven, until bottoms and edges just start to get light brown. Remove from baking sheet and cool on wire racks. Store in an airtight container.

PERFECT VEGAN ICING RECIPE

Each batch is enough to easily coat 24 cookies.

2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon of almond extract (I used vanilla, but I bet the almond extract would add a yummy taste to the icing)
6-8 teaspoons of soy milk
Assorted food coloring
4 teaspoons of light corn syrup

Directions:
1. In medium bowl, stir together confectioners' sugar and soy milk until smooth. Beat in corn syrup and almond extract until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add more corn syrup.

2. Add food coloring to desired intensity. Dip cookies and allow to dry overnight.

Wishing for Sunny Weather

Well, it's raining again so I'm sitting here wishing for sunny weather. Of course the kids woke up bright and early (as they always do on rainy days) so we had to come up with lots of rainy day projects. Today we decided to wish for a nice spring day by planting some flowers. Clark picked up some little pots in the $1 section yesterday and they came with a disk of compost and seeds. We plumped up the dirt with some water, filled our pots and planted our seeds. After our seeds were planted we drew pictures of what we thought our flowers would look like and decided to bake some spring sugar cookies! (I'll post this recipe tomorrow - after we ice them) Still gloomy outside, but we had a fun filled day.




Empty pots


Stirring the dirt




Planted our seeds




Hmmm, what will our flowers look like?


Gregory's flowers


Bailey's flower