Sprinkles!

Since I have a lot more free time on my hands and I bought a shit ton of flour, I've been experimenting with some cupcake recipes. I'm at this point where I have to say goodbye to a lot of people I've worked with at not-for-profits in Richmond, and a lot of them have never eaten a vegan cupcake. I had to bake them a few before I left. I thought I would try and make strawberry shortcake cupcakes because strawberries are in season and they remind me of summer. All of the recipes I found told me to make the "Golden Vanilla Cupcakes" out of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. The cornstarch and the butter make these dense and taste like cornbread...not a cupcake. So instead, I found this recipe off of Jennifer McCann's blog, who is the author of Vegan Lunch Box. I whipped this up and added some chopped up strawberries. I then made "Old-Fashioned Velvet Icing" from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and it turned out terrible. I remember trying to make this same recipe a year ago and it didn't work out then. I should have known better. It turned out really really runny instead of fluffy like the whipped cream texture I was going for. It really takes a lot to make me angry, but I tell you what, runny icing is up there.

In order to redeem my messed up batch of strawberry shortcake, I made Jennifer McCann's recipe again, but added sprinkles and topped it with a really thick chocolate icing. I think I subconsciously made this icing insanely thick because I was so pissed off about the runny icing. My all time favorite childhood cake was funfetti. I was really surprised that I had never tried to make it before, so I did it today! It turned out really well, and if you look at Norah's cupcake sandwich, you can see the swirl of wonderful colors!