Happy Children's Day! Or Cinco de Mayo! Hope everyone is enjoying their day off~ Play like a kid and eat some Mexican food today!
Anyway, one of my friends (Candyse) had her bachelorette party last night. To celebrate the final weeks of her singledom, I baked cupcakes! Red velvet cupcakes with buttercream frosting, to be exact. I entertained the idea of decorating them with hot pink icing and flesh-colored body parts as is a common theme for these sorts of events, but then I decided to keep things classy. You know, gotta keep things G-Rated, for the blog... :P
For the cakes, I used the 'Crimson Velveteen Cupcakes' recipe from VCTOTW. I've been in a cookie phase for such a long time that it has been forever since I cracked open that recipe book! But making those 'Princess Kate' lemony-coconut cupcakes for last week's bake sale got me excited about baking and decorating cupcakes again.
For the frosting, I started out with the basic buttercream frosting recipe from VCTOTW, but I ended up going rogue, throwing in lots of extra sugar powder and even some non dairy whipping cream until I got the right consistency... I would post the recipe, but I really don't know the final measurements... The frosting tasted great, but it got a bit dry on the edges as time passed, so I'll have to remedy that next time.
Since the recipe adds cocoa powder, these turned out much darker and browner than I expected. Infact, they look more like chocolate cake than red velvet, but that could also be because I was using Korean red food coloring and wasn't sure if the concentrations would be the same. The recipe says to put 2 tsp of red food coloring, but I think I only put in about 1tsp. Next time I shan't skimp on the radioactive food coloring!
You can kind of see more 'red' in this picture... . Anyway, these tasted so delicious that I ate three myself. yikes. I only had 9 left- just enough for everyone at the bachelorette party. The verdict? Everyone loooooved them! They all said that they were moist, delicious, and they couldn't believe it was all vegan. Isn't that just the best compliment an omni can give? :)
For dinner, Candyse, the bride-to-be, picked Taj at Gangnam Station. I've been there several times before and they're always really helpful and accommodating for vegans. Yunseo and I shared two vegan curries and some roti bread.
"Makki Palak Aur Muttur Ka Salan" (17,000 won). This was spinach curry with baby corn inside. Soooo good.
"Khum Aloo Hara Piaz" (16,000 won), which was a spicy curry with diced potatoes, button mushrooms, and plenty of chopped chives. I had this the last time I went there and had to get it again. It was delicious, but tasted a lot spicier this time around. Or maybe my memory is failing me.
A meeting of two curries on a plate. A metaphor for marriage, perhaps? Anyway, it was a night of great vegan Indian food, cupcakes, and friendship. I'm excited for Candyse' upcoming wedding!