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الثلاثاء، 14 يناير 2014

Happy Birthday



Guess what today is?
...
"The day after Christmas...?" you say? Eh. True, but also something else.

Today is my birthday!
Yup. My birthday is right after Christmas.
 To celebrate, I invited a couple of friends over and we ate cake, talked, went on omegle, and partially watched Monte Carlo.
My dad somehow got me to get a cake from Cold Stone (the Cookie Dough Delirium one), even though I made vegan cupcakes prior to that. Sigh.
Nobody ate them; then again, I never introduced them.
Meh. Whatever, more cupcakes for me :]

However, this is not my recipe by any means! But, let me describe this cupcake for you.

First of all, the cake is nice and fluffy. Spongy, with a decadent, rich chocolate flavor. Somewhat healthy, but just sweet enough to satisfy a sweet tooth. The cake is vegan and wonderfully rich. Did I mention that yet? The richness, however, isn't too rich to when you bite into it, you feel heavy.
It's also just really delicious and not greasy. That's a serious win, because some cakes I get, they're greasy or wayy to sweet to the point where I feel like I'll throw up. Ooh, I crushed up about 1-1/2 oreos and just sprinkled it on top (<- my parents bought oreos for my sister, but she never ate them >_>)

The frosting is very simple and can easily be piped on by using a ziploc bag, or if you're feeling fancy, a pastry bag can also work, but ziploc bags are just much cheaper and they seem to be a home staple :]
The frosting can easily have it's flavor changed. I used a couple of spoonfuls of Adam's Natural Peanut Butter and mixed/folded it into the frosting 'batter'. It's just a hint, but when you bit into the cake, you'll definitely get the PB taste.

Honestly speaking, I wish I was more creative with my 'decorating' even though no one really saw it or ate it. Sure, these squiggly lines were nice, but what about spirals?!

Okay. Enough with my weird mindless talking. Here are the links to the recipes:

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes:
http://www.snack-girl.com/snack/vegan-chocolate-cupcake-recipe/

how to make them healthier:
-use healthier sugar alternatives, such as organic cane juice, demerara, turbinado, Sugar In The Raw, etc. and just give it a whirl in a food processor or blender to make the sugar finer (it may look like your processor have caught fire and 'smoke' may emanate from it; it's fine, just sugar powder)
-lower the sugar if you want and add less dry ingredients (maybe 2/3 or 1/2 cup? 1/4 cup is too drastic in my opinion)
-use whole wheat or spelt flour instead of all purpose
-use half of the amount of oil recommended and substitute with applesauce, banana, or pumpkin (although, personally, I think the applesauce would affect the taste the least) for the other half.


Frosting Recipe:
http://itsybitsyfoodies.com/natural-buttercream-frosting-dyes/ 

variations:
-cocoa powder makes a great chocolate frosting for chocolate cupcakes!
-peanut butter gives it a slight brown-ish tint, but tastes amazing too.
-the dyes in the post are great too; plus, they're natural (beet juice, carrot juice, spinach juice, and grape juice)

Night everyone :] As of today, I'm officially a teen, haha ^^


First photo but with Nashville filter :]
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New Eating Changes...?



Hi there! :]
I've noticed that since Halloween, my healthy-eating habits have been waning and it's honestly not something I'm glad about. I mean, I have been eating things like apples and quinoa but also things like Nutella (from my friends during lunch. It's like melted milk chocolate spread on bread) and too much sugar.

Reminds me...I found Biscoff spread at my local grocery store yesterday. I heard it's addictive. I also heard that if I haven't tried it before, I shouldn't so I can save myself from an addiction.

Anyways, during winter break (Dec. 16-30) I decided to rid meat in my diet, but still include foods like shellfish (although I rarely eat that, maybe max. 5 times a year), fish, and eggs (I need protein, of course :). So far, so good.

I'm personally notorious for eating many slices of bread a day, sometimes even 4 slices in a day. Bad, bad habit. To break it, I decided to freeze the bread I buy (who wants to give me a fool-proof yeast bread recipe?) and that has helped or I only eat 1 or none slices in a day. The most would be 2 since the bread is out of sight and mind.

Quinoa has been added to my diet, but will soon vanish as the store I go to has stopped stocking on it. Instead, I'll be trying millet instead, as that grain(?) is the only one available to me now.

So, awhile ago, I made these muffins:
Recipe can be found here

Some modifications
  • I couldn't actually grate an apple. Too much water in them, I guess, so I used ~1/3 cup apple sauce in place of the grated apple
  • In the topping, I decided to only use 1 tsp honey since the topping already had 1 tbsp sugar + the muffin itself had 1/4 cup of honey
  • In the directions for the topping, it said to add oil, which wasn't placed on the ingredients list so I just left it out. No harm done
Verdict: awesome muffin. I loved the topping; it was crunchy and sweet while the muffin was moist, although very slightly oily, so next time I think I'll add 2 tbsp oil and 2 tbsp applesauce (+ the applesauce for the grated apple)
PS. Photos taken with iPhone 3GS, edited with apps on the iPhone (I think one of them was Camera+). Also taken on a pretty bad day too...


So yeah. Ignore them :]
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