Karina Sends Her Girls Off with a 3-Layered Goodbye...

Its just so happened that my first batch of mini cupcakes I was going to sell at the the corner market was scheduled for delivery the same day that two of my closest friends were throwing their going away party. (Before taking off for Central and South America.) I saw no reason not to kill (or bake) two birds with one stove.


Since the market suggested three different flavors, I decided to use the remaining batter to make a three layer cake for my ladies.

When I asked Lauren what her favorite cake was, she immediately mentioned carrot cake. I decided to make the first layer and batch a vegan ginger cashew carrot cake.

I looked up a few carrot cake recipes to get some ideas and decided to start with this one:

• 3 Cups shredded
• 1 1/4 Cup Organic Unbleached Sugar
• 2 Cups Organic Unbleached Flour
• 1/2 Teaspoon of Sea Salt
• 2 Teaspoons of Baking Powder
• 1/2 Teaspoon of Baking Soda
• 2 Teaspoons of Cinnamon
• 1/2 Cup of OJ
• 3/4 Cup of Canola Oil
• 1 Cup of raisins shopping list
• 1 Cup of Chopped walnuts

Lucky for me my good friend Morgan was visiting from out of town so I had me an assistant!


I threw a bug bunch of washed, organic carrots in the food processor to shred them and then I pressed out the excess liquid in a colander. Instead of walnuts I crushed some cashews (because that's what I had), and finely chopped up a about two tbls of fresh ginger.


I didn't have any OJ in the house, but we did find a really over-ripened peach so I had Morgan chop that up finely instead and add it with a few splashed of water and almond milk.


Once the carrot/liquid mix was well blended, we added it to the dry ingredients we had mixed as well. This took a lot of hand power as it was too thick and difficult to mix with a wooden spoon. I added some vanilla and agave for some more sweetness and water for a lighter texture because it was tasting and feeling more like a muffin mix than cake mix to me.


The flavor of the batter was good, but my intuition told me this was going to be a little denser and muffin-like than I was hoping for. I figured sometimes that's what you get with experimenting with new recipes and hoped for the best.



I used my trusty, go-to vegan cake recipe as the base for the other two flavors. I made a big batch of basic cake batter, and divided it in two for my two different flavors. With what the seasonal market had to offer me, I decided to make both a Lavender- Vanilla layer, and a Blueberry Mint one.

For the first of the two, I added a few tablespoons of dried lavender buds...


...Scraped some organic vanilla beans, and chopped up a little fresh ginger.


For the second I blended some fresh blueberries, mint, lemon and agave and added this compote into the other bowl of batter.


We filled our various cake-pans and cupcake trays and started the process of baking them all.


The carrot cake came out looking beautiful, but my hunch was right that it was a little dryer and denser than desired. I decided to add some moisture and sweetness by forking holes all over the surface, and drizzling some organic Vermont maple syrup my friend Dan had given me.


I made a vegan vanilla-ginger frosting by throwing some earth balance, powdered sugar, cinnamon, sea salt, fresh ginger, and vanilla extract into the food processor. I frosted the first carrot cake layer with this delicious frosting. I found in the fridge a small container of the blueberry lavender frosting I had made the week before, so I decided to alternate the second blueberry mint layer with this.


I topped my final layer, lavender-vanilla, with my new vanilla-ginger frosting and we began decorating with all the goodies we set out for ourselves.


Strawberries, pistachios, shaved coconut, fresh mint, crystallized ginger and blueberries, Oh my!


The cake was brought to the bar hosting the farewell extravaganza, and was just about gone by the time I left!
(Note: this is a good tactic to use if you want the owner and bartenders to grant you free drinks all night!)


Proud Cake Mama's!


Couldn't forget to drop off our mini-friends at the market as well! The first round did really well- I went in the following week and there was one left on the plate!

Karina's Vegan Lavender Mint Cake with Apricot Mint Frosting!

Spending hours in the kitchen working on a cake is blissfully therapeutic for me (or maybe its more the tasting along the way and eating of said cake afterward...). Regardless, I was happy for the excuse of a friend's birthday to get it the baking zone again.

I went down to the local Haight St. Market and delighted in the fresh abundance that stone fruit and berry season had to offer! I was immediately drawn to the Organic and ripe Rainer Cherries, apricots, and black- and blueberries. I grabbed a bundle of fresh mint as well, stocked up on the basics of flour and sugar, and headed home to begin my baking party for one.

My friend Alex told me his wife Mel (birthday gal) was a classic vanilla cake connoisseur, but gave me the go ahead to spice it up a bit. I decided to do a vanilla cake infused with subtle mint and lavender, and then make an apricot-mint frosting. I also decided to do it vegan so everyone could join in on the fun.


I crushed up a few tbls of lavender buds and probably 1/2 cup chopped fresh mint as finely as possible and added it to my trusty vegan vanilla cake recipe:



2 cups water
3/4 cups light oil (I used olive)
2 tbl white vinegar
4 tsp vanilla
3-1/2 cups unbleached flour
2 cups sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
a few shakes of cinnamon or any other flavors you want to experiment with!


Bake at 350* for about 40 minutes or until cooked through ( I always check mine early to make sure its as moist as possible.)


The frosting was completely improvised. I know if you take earth balance, some type of milk (I used hemp milk), and powdered sugar you will get something resembling frosting. I decided to start flavoring by slicing up three apricots and throwing them into the food processor with the rest of the bundle of mint and a splash of hemp milk to keep it moving.


Then I threw that apricot puree in a large bowl with a few scoops of earth balance, a cup of powdered sugar, agave, cinnamon, and randomly, a few scoops of vanilla coconut milk ice cream I had had the night before.

I used a hand mixer to blend and thicken it up. This was working, but after doing it maybe too long, it started to separate a little. I let it sit in the refrigerator over night, then brought it down to room temp again and put it all in the food processor the next morning with some more powdered sugar and that smoothed it up a lot.


It was still not my ideal consistency, but it tasted so good it didn't matter. I knew that I could use it as a thick glaze that would help "glue" on all of my fresh fruit garnish.


Along with the fruit, I sprinkled some candied ginger crumbs on top.


Thank you summer fruit!

Karina makes Vegan Chocolate Peppermint Cupcakes!

I have a friend who works at a certain well-known clothing store on Haight St. While visiting the other day, I overheard her and her manager discuss how they still needed to buy a vegan dessert for their much anticipated, invitation- only, sale-in-store party. I took it as my duty to chime in and offer myself up for the job, and luckily was immediately hired!

I was planning on doing a cake, but we all decided it would be much cleaner and easier to do a whole lot of cupcakes. I wanted to do something festive so I chose chocolate, mint and orange...



This is the basic recipe I started with and I'll take you through my changes:

Vegan Chocolate Batter Base

1 cup organic, unbleached flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 tbl black cocoa powder (I couldn't find this so I left it out)
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup soy milk ( I used vanilla almond milk)
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup maple syrup ( I used Trader Joe's organic maple/agave blend)
1/4 cup organic sugar
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla
mint extract-see below


The first batch I did, I added some of the mint extract I bought for the frosting recipe because I wanted the cupcakes to be minty as well. Unfortunately, the bottle was knocked on the floor, spilt everywhere and no other stores around me carried more. I should have actually said fortunately, because this forced me to be creative and I made my own "mint extract" which was WAY better and tasted more natural. I took a bunch of the fresh mint I bought to garnish with, and first put it in the blender with some fresh orange segments and honey. This worked ok, but I tried it again with my morter and pestle and was able to grind up the mint leafs much finer. I drained the juice, saved some of the mint greens and kept it all for the second batter and frosting.

To the batter I added cinnamon, fresh squeezed orange juice,and a bit more cocoa until the batter was completely delicious. I of course made 4 times as much batter as that original recipe, so I experimented with a little more flour or oil here and there to make enough and have it be the right consistency. I lined the cupcake pans with cupcake liners, coated them with a mist of oil and filled them up about 3/4 of the way.

I baked the cupcakes in batches at 350* for 20-25 minutes each until they were perfectly cooked through but not too hard. I let them cool over night and went on to the frosting.

Vegan Mint Orange Frosting

1/4 cup non-dairy shortening (Earth Balance of course!)

3 cups organic powdered sugar

1 1/2 tsp mint extract ( or a whole bunch of my own mint-orange mixture!)
1/2 tsp vanilla

This is such a great base for vegan frostings- you can add whatever flavors you want and the earth balance and powdered sugar make it thick, creamy and so yummy!

To prepare for garnishing, I washed and dried some fresh mint and crushed a bunch of starlight mints in my morter. I soaked cranberries in sugar and orange juice overnight so they would be sweet enough to eat.

Then I did my thing...

I had a co-worker's party the same night so I just busted out an extra cake out of the mix and killed two birds with one stone. Yum!

The crumbled peppermints ontop gave it a really great crunch in the otherwise smooth texture.

It was as easy as that!