End of a Great Month!

Well, the woman who won the cupcake challenge certainly made me cook my socks off this weekend! To end World Vegetarian Month, I had a drawing for my colleagues to win a dozen free cupcakes of their choosing. Cappuccino Cupcakes from Isa's VCTOTW, was the poison the winner selected.
It was pure pleasure to be making these, and I was glad she asked me to make these, because I had never made them and I probably wouldn't have chosen to make them any time soon. This is because there were four steps. First, you make the mousse filling, which had two steps itself. I had to use agar flakes, but although Isa recommended cooking them longer than the powder, I found that the mixture started cooking down to nothing and I had to stop earlier than suggested with this step. Anyhow, the filling was incredibly creamy and puddinglike, but I did find some little lumps in it, that were undoubtedly the agar flakes that hadn't dissolved properly. Hope no one else noticed it! :)

While that chilled for about an hour, I baked the cupcakes (which came out perfectly!), and then while those cooled, made the frosting. Then I poked careful holes to fill the cupcakes with my handy-dandy icing/frosting gadget from Pampered Chef (like a big syringe with different tips). Then I washed this and filled it again with the frosting. Then I made the chocolate ganache and quickly dusted them all with cocoa powder. Three hours later, and these are the beautiful results. The kind recipient sent an email to everyone, saying they were the best cupcakes (vegan or otherwise) she'd ever had, and her husband added, "phenomenal." Because one of her daughters has a nut allergy, she is going to buy the cookbook herself. Yay! Others who enjoyed them (she couldn't eat all 12 herself!) commented that if vegans ate only cupcakes (like these), they would be vegan right now.

Unfortunately, despite my weekly efforts to inform and entice my fellow teachers, I found that some people still hadn't been reached. While a couple people said that they might become vegetarian after all this great food and info, one said to my face during a discussion about food for an upcoming party, "Well, what'll you eat? Tofu?" I was happy to have my wits about me enough to respond, "Where have you been all month??!!" Then I went home to eat an awesome three-bean chili (from Vegetarian Times, Oct. 2007) and kale with coconut-spice sauce, while I watched the Patriots kick some Redskin ass.