This Week's Baking

I call these Maduro Cupcakes. They're part of my Back to Roots Series. I've been developing some recipes that sprout from family roots. I want to interpret Puerto Rican desserts into cakes/cupcakes. This is my first experiment. The cake is Caribbean spice cake, made with cloves, cinnamon, a little allspice, and the frosting is a tiny on the caramel side, drizzled with vegan caramely flan sauce infused with cloves. I wanted to top it with a platano, but the fried banana worked. These were ridiculous! As in good.

These are Mini Layered Coconut Cakes made for my friend Kim's birthday. I used the Coconut Cloud Layer Cake recipe from Fran Costigan's book More Great Good Dairy-Free Desserts and iced the layers and outside with a basic vegan coconut buttercream. The toppers are tempered chocolate set in shapes.


Wheeler's Black Label sent me a sampling of his vegan ice cream last week! Whoohoo! I baked these orange-ginger cookie bowls for the occasion. This recipe is also from Fran's lovely book.

This is a gorgeous ginger ice cream topped with the clove-infused caramel sauce I made for the Maduro Cupcakes. There's a little "milano" cookie on top that I made with the orange-ginger cookies sandwiching chocolate.
This sundae has Wheeler's ginger and green tea vegan ice creams. So, so delicious. Thanks Wheeler!

This Week's Baking

I baked for a women's group this weekend. They gave me creative license, and I wanted to give them something decadent and sophisticated. These have a chocolate cake with an espresso ganache and a touch of amaretto. I topped with a royal icing and a fondant flower.


These I baked for the family. Monogram cupcakes! Rich chocolate cake with a simple vanilla frosting, lettered in dark chocolate. Yum.


And these I baked for the office. I attended a week-long vegan baking intensive this past week at the Natural Gourmet Institute in Manhattan, and I promised the office something immediately when I returned. These are Coffee Cake Muffins inspired by a cake recipe by Fran Costigan.

Valentine's Day Shimmer

The decorating of these was inspired by lovely British baker Peggy Porschen. Half of the cupcakes are vegan jelly-filled almond cardamom. The others are rich vegan chocolate. Both are topped with fondant icing and royal icing with edible shimmer.

Supporting Future Activists

My twelve year old daughter started an animal rights group at her middle school. I told her I would bake for her group every time they met. If yummy treats lure them there, her compassion will keep them. It's proving to be a good combination.
These are pumpkin chocolate chip cupcakes with cinnamon icing. The original recipe is from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and they are delicious.

Rivera's at Animal Acres!

Animal Acres held their their annual holiday party on December 15th and we were there to donate nine dozen cupcakes for the event. We brought chocolate cupcakes with crushed candy cane frosting, all vegan of course. The candy canes were from Hammond's all-natural line of candies colored with only beet-color; no unknown bug juice! We also brought gingerbread cupcakes, our personal holiday favorite. We love you, Animal Acres!