Jasmine's Birthday Cake

This past month, my baby sister, Jasmine, turned 19! I could scarcely believe it. I remember when she was born, yadda yadda *insert nostalgic big sister rambling here*. Being that Jasmine is here going to university {and 1000 miles away from home}, I knew that I wanted to be the one to make her a birthday cake and make sure that her birthday was special.

When asked what kind of birthday cake she wanted, Jasmine's only request was "chocolate, and lots of it". I decided to go with the Rich Chocolate Cake recipe from The PPK, and this Vegan Chocolate Buttercream recipe from Epicurious. Both the cake and the frosting were delicious, however the frosting was not your typical buttercream. You know that fudgy glossy frosting grocery store bakeries slather on their brownies? It was more like that...which turned out to be amazing!

Since I fail at cake decorating, I decided to employ the help of my printer {and exploit Jasmine's love of Audrey Hepburn}. My feeble efforts had the desired effect, and Jasmine squealed when she saw her cake.

It was a big hit, and she took the leftover cake home to her roommates. Apparently her roommates want to erect a statue in my honor. All in a vegan superhero's day's work...all in a day's work.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Shells

This afternoon I made the Chocolate Peanut Butter Shells from The 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes — yum! They are so delicious, but very rich.

The chocolate dough was a dream to work with, but the peanut butter dough was a pain in the butt. However, I chalk that up entirely to my own stupidity. I got overzealous and started mixing the peanut butter filling ingredients before reading the directions. Do you know how hard it is to combine a bunch of peanut butter with a bunch of powdered sugar? I’ll give you a hint — VERY. I’m sure it would have been much better if I’d slowly added the powdered sugar, as the author so helpfully suggests. D’oh! In the end, it all came out okay, though.

Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake

I had the opportunity to pull out The Urban Vegan yesterday for the first time since getting it. The first recipe that caught my eye was in the desserts section {naturally}, this beautiful Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake.

The cheesecake was perfect, with a texture akin to standard New York cheesecakes, however I failed to put it in a water bath while baking {or rather, the recipe failed to mention the necessity of doing so} and the top came out horrifically cracked.

Oh well, no harm, no foul, and definitely not something that a can of cherry pie filling can’t fix!