Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Victoria's Secret Fashion Show Sexy Vegan Petit Fours!

Hello Bombshells!
TODAY is the 2010 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show!  I had wanted to host an online shindig complete with girly petit fours, but was told the idea was too ambitious.  Regardless, Chelsea and I are still super excited, and went ahead and made some!  I'll be watching in PA, and she'll be watching in CA.  And, we'll both be snacking on our "sexy" petit fours that we made for the event!  Here are our recipes incase you want to throw some together for yourself!


My version: (Vegan) Ravishing Red Velvet Petit Fours with Victoria's Secret PINK Frosting!



My idea was to create an edible version of their iconic bag.  You know, the one with the red and pink stripes.  I had every intention to cover them and decorate them, but they looked just so darn cute as is.  Plus, my fondant did NOT come out right, and made the first one look terrible.  So, it really was a win-win to just leave them alone.

Ingredients:
For the Red Velvet Cake:
- 2 1/2 cups AP flour
- 1.5 tablespoons cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 cups sugar (castor if you have it.  If not, grind regular sugar in a food processor)
- ENER-G egg replacer equivalent of 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 tablespoons vegan red food coloring
- 1 cup vegan buttermilk*
- Dash of salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon vinegar
- 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons vegan shortening
- 2 tablespoons vegan butter
- 1 teaspoon baking soda

For the Icing:
I used the Cream Cheese Frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and added two drops of vegan red food coloring to make it pink.  If you do not have this book, a) get it immediately, and/or b) use your favorite simple cream cheese frosting recipe.

* To make vegan buttermilk, just add 1 tablespoon white vinegar or lemon juice to 1 cup soy milk.  Wisk, and let sit for at least 5 minutes.  You can also substitute plain vegan yogurt.

Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 350°F.  Cut a circle that will fit in your cake pan out of wax paper, and place it in your pan.  To do this, simply turn your pan over, place a piece of wax paper, trace, and cut on the line!  Fits perfectly!
2. Sift together your flour, cocoa powder, and salt.  This took forever because my sifter is the biggest piece of crap ever!  Hopefully, you can do this in under 15 minutes.
3. Make your vegan buttermilk and set aside to curdle (yum).
4. Cream together the shortening, butter, and sugar.  Speaking of taking forever, I'd love to have a working electric mixer.  This took me... 20 MINUTES.
5. Add the vanilla.
6. Add the red food coloring to the buttermilk.  Add as much or as little as you like.  I found 1.5 tablespoons to be perfect for the color I wanted to achieve.
7. Add the flour mixture and the buttermilk together in batches.  Don't be scared if it curdles and looks disgusting (I was).  It gets better, I promise.
8. Combine the white vinegar and baking soda, and fold into the batter.  Every recipe I used to build mine (I've never had or made this before!) liked this idea, so I rolled with it.
9. Pour into your cake pan.  
10. Bake for 20-35 minutes, depending on your oven.  My cake took over 30 minutes.  It is ready when you pass the toothpick test (ie. a toothpick inserted into the center of your cake comes out clean).
11. Let cool for a bit before placing in freezer to cool.
12. Make your icing!  Most recipes will have you creaming together all of the ingredients until light and fluffy.  I added two drops of red food coloring to make mine pink!  Place in 'fridge to cool.
13. Cut your cake into layers!  Ice each layer, and stack them back together. Check it out:


14. I cut mine in half, because I wanted to save some of the cake to eat on it's own:


15. Then, I used a ring mold to cut them into bite-sized pieces:



So cute!  And DELICIOUS!  I ate pretty much all of the scraps....

Chelsea's version: (Vegan) Radient Raspberry and Chocolate Petit Fours with a Classic Poured Fondant Finish


Chelsea went for classic petit fours, and absolutely nailed them.  They look delectable!!!

Ingredients:
For the Sponge Cake:
- ENER-G equivalent of 4 eggs
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 cups AP flour
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 cup soy milk
- 5 tbsp. vegan butter, melted
- 1 jar raspberry jam filling

For the Chocolate Ganache:
- 1 bar of bittersweet or unsweetened chocolate

For the Poured Fondant:
- 2 1/2 cups
sugar
- 1/2 cup
water
- 1/4 cup
corn syrup
Method:



- Preheat the oven to 350. Grease and flour a 10x15 inch jellyroll pan.
- Put all ingredients in mixer and mix until smooth.
- Spread onto pan.
- Bake for 12-15 mins.
- When done, flip cake onto wire rack and let cool.
- When cooled slice off the crusty edges with a long serrated knife. (save them to eat!)
- Cut the cake in half width wise (horizontally) so you have two evenly sized pieces.
- Spread raspberry filling on top of 1 piece then layer other piece on top. Spreading 1 more layer of raspberry.
- Slice chocolate and put shavings in double boiler, heat until smooth.
- Now pour warm chocolate over the top and spread evenly, coating the raspberry.
- Put in fridge until chocolate has hardened.
- For the fondant:
- Heat sugar, water and corn syrup to the soft-ball stage (when it turns completely clear and starts to evenly make foamy bubbles).
- Pour into food processor directly from pan
- Let sit in food processor undisturbed for 30 mins.
- Add any coloring or flavoring and process for 3 mins.- until the syrup completely converts from a glassy syrup to an opaque paste.
- Pour into microwaveable bowl, in case it hardens before you finish coating all of your petit fours and need to liquify it more.
- Once hardened cut cake evenly into 15 squares- 3 down, 5 across.
- Dip each square into bowl of fondant and coat completely.
- Let sit on wire rack to harden.
- Once hardened you can decorate any way you like.


Enjoy the show!  I'm hoping to catch it from a treadmill...:)




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