Tag: cupcakes

I hadn’t heard of the Patchwork fair until they asked if I could vend. I don’t know if I could commit to two holiday craft shows, so I sadly declined but definitely wanted to check it out as a shopper. Patchwork had 3 shows already in Culver City, Long Beach and Oakland. If you’re in Santa Ana, the last holiday show is TOMORROW, Sunday the 25th, so go check it out! I get shy sometimes about asking people if I can take photos of their booths, so there aren’t very many photos… sorry! We picked up two succulent plants from Branch of Life.  I loved the little vintage-looking food cans! Here’s my girl Polly of PollyAnnaCowgirl. Her booth is like a retro kitsch fantasy! Colorful gumball necklaces, tiny walnut-shell Christmas tree ornaments (which I’m holding below but you can’t really see). I bought two ornaments and a ring! The farmers market was also out that day, and we picked up some veggies. Hairy saw some little peppers and said, “I CAN PICKLE THAT.” A honey stand was selling the tiniest honey bears I’ve ever seen. I had to get one! When we got back to San Francisco, we stopped at Sift Cupcake & Dessert Bar, which we ha never visited before and apparently was a winner of Cupcake Wars. I got something chocolatey and something lemon-y. These are my baseline cupcakes to compare cupcakeries. The chocolatey one was super good, but the lemony- one….less good. I also ate the lemon-y one the next day, so that probably didn’t help. My #1 favorite lemony cupcake is still from Kara’s Cupcakes. They definitely don’t skimp on squirting the lemon goo in there! That same day we also bought pumpkin pie and muffins : /. It was a shameful but delightful outing.

So… Elysse graduated this weekend and I wanted to make her vegan cupcakes. After flipping through the cupcake book, we thought that Brain cupcakes would be a good idea. However, this has been a really busy weekend, and I didn’t think we’d have time to bake, so I decided to try to find vegan cupcakes pre-made, scrape off the decorative frosting, and add the brains. We picked up some Black China Bakery cupcakes via Whole Foods, and while Hairy whipped up the vegan buttercream, I carefully scraped off the yucky German chocolate blobs and raspberry creme dollops. Our buttercream recipe did not end up holding up all that well. Hairy tried refrigerating the frosting first before piping the brains on. The first one slid right off the cupcake! And the later ones started melting again! We stuck them in the freezer over night and then hoped they would look semi okay to give to Elysse. Hairy says of one of the cupcakes, “That looks like lungs.” This is your brain on buttercream.