Things were going so well. I was getting a little cocky. I guess the time had to come.

This week, I experienced my first baking failure.

To preface this project, let me explain the dual purpose I hinted at before. I suggested that the bookstore where I work should have a cupcake decorating day, as a store in another city did this around Christmas. My store decided to do it as a Valentine’s project, so I and one of my managers each baked some cupcakes and then we went out and bought fun pink and red decorations.

I decided to bake vegan cupcakes, not only to fulfill my week’s project, but also to provide such cupcakes to any vegans who might show up (and to expose children to the idea). So I thought I would bake vanilla and chocolate for a little variety:

The chocolate ones turned out fantastic:

The vanilla ones, however, were a different story. The recipe gave me the option of using either margarine or canola oil. I had the canola oil on hand, so I went with it. The recipe instructed me to use 1/4 teaspoon of salt, but to increase it to 1/2 teaspoon if I was using the oil. The chocolate ones did not include these instructions.

Biting into those vanilla cupcakes was like biting into a salt lick…WHOA! I don’t know what happened, but 1/2 teaspoon was just way too much salt for 12 little cupcakes:

There was only one place for these salty dogs to go:

Anyway, the chocolate ones went over great. The kids (and adults) at work had a great time dumping conversation hearts and cinnamon bears all over their cupcakes. (Unfortunately, I couldn’t take any photos at work.)

So if anyone else has run into this problem, let me know. Or has everyone else just used margarine?

Tune in next week when I’ll be making Milk-Chocolate Cookies with Malted Cream!

This week I decided to try a recipe at which my friend Jennifer Prochilo seems to excel. She continuously posts photos of these chocolate-y cookies called Peanut Butter Bombs that I really wanted to try.

I am not the biggest fan of the chocolate/peanut butter combo. I like Reese’s Pieces but find that Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are better in moderation (and frozen! They absolutely must be frozen!). But I know most people enjoy that combo, especially my grandmother, so I decided to make a batch and take some to her for her 82nd birthday this week.

They’re mostly vegan because I’m not sure if the chocolate chips I bought were vegan or not. As it wasn’t important for them to be entirely vegan, I didn’t really try that hard to find chips that I was sure were vegan.

The recipe started with a chocolate dough that consisted of flour, baking soda, cocoa powder, soy milk, margarine, white sugar, brown sugar and vanilla:

Next was a peanut butter dough made with peanut butter, powdered sugar and the chocolate chips:

The chocolate dough was rolled into a ball and then flattened out into a disc. The peanut butter dough was then rolled into a slightly smaller ball and put in the middle of the chocolate dough, which was then folded over the peanut butter:

This is the point where I started having problems. Jennifer’s Peanut Butter Bombs are always pure chocolate on the outside. The peanut butter is completely hidden and a surprise for the eater. The peanut butter in my cookies kept leaking out the seams. I could not get the peanut butter completely encased in the chocolate:

My cookies were not sophisticated enough to be called “bombs”. So I’m renaming this recipe Peanut Butter IEDs (no disrespect to all you military folks out there, of course).

They tasted all right though:

And I think my grandma enjoyed her gift:

Tune in next week for Vegan Vanilla and Chocolate Cupcakes! Week Seven will turn back on the animal-product highway after my little detour down Vegan Boulevard, but I’m sure I’ll be making a few more pit stops in the next year.