It All Started With A Cupcake

I went vegan after I made my first successful vegan cupcake. It was actually this cupcake recipe from Chloe Coscarelli, and at the time I'd just seen her win cupcake wars with her vegan cupcakes! All I knew about her at the time, was that she was just a girl my age (almost exactly to the date!) who loved to make cupcakes, and I thought, "how different can we be?" and so once I tried out her recipe and loved it, I thought, "why would I make any other kind of cupcakes but these?" so then I decided I would go vegan, because as long as I could still have cupcakes, there was nothing holding me back!

When Alex and I moved to New Jersey, we didn't know anyone and were just starting to make some new friends, so I decided to bake lots of vegan cupcakes for people and all of sudden we were having big parties at our apartment, the cupcakes always the highlight of the night.

I busied myself testing recipe after recipe, and baked zillions of cupcakes. A year or two later, I began selling them by the dozen to friends, coworkers, and anyone else I knew.

When friends came to visit, we pretty much spent the whole time baking together. That became the only thing I knew how to do!!

I started selling out of my apartment, I had a little menu, ranging from classic flavors like chocolate peanut butter and red velvet, to whacky flavors like Sloppy Drunk (rum cake with tequila buttercream and a wine-soaked piece of fruit) and Irish Barfight (butterscotch-filled vanilla cake with a whiskey buttercream, dipped in cherry puree and sprinkled with mini chips).

People ordered them for wedding showers, baby showers, weddings, birthdays, valentines day, Christmas, Hanukkah, anniversaries, or just to eat for themselves (which I encouraged)!

The flavor I sold the most of was the Pumpkin Spice cake with a cinnamon buttercream and a candied pecan. I always made a giant batch of candied pecans so I'd have them leftover to eat. What is the deal with pecans and why are they so impervious to our willpower?

Another big hit was my New Years cupcakes. They were pretty simple, actually. It was a pink champagne cake with a raspberry champagne buttercream, topped with raspberries and gold sprinkles. My brother said they were his favorite cupcake he ever had, and I know that's not a lie, because he is very honest, for better or worse.

New Jersey is special to me, not only because it is the birthplace of my veganism, but also the place I remember spending most of my time in my kitchen, baking during every free hour, no matter if I had 6 friends in the kitchen with me, or if it was just me and my tunes. I loved hosting brunches and dinners in my apartment, and loved meeting new friends and learning that when you're new in town, the best way to meet people is to lure them in with vegan baked goods!