Vegan Month of Food 2016 - Day 19: "The Goth of it All"

Today we are on Day 19 of Vegan Month of Food, our prompt is "Goth Day," show off the blues, blacks and purples.

Been there done that (anyone remember my Vegan Black Metal Chef video?) Despite the fact that working with black, purple and/or blue coloring is my least favorite (do you know how much black dye it takes to get a true black, even using chocolate frosting?!! do you know the damage blues and purples does to my spatulas, cake equipment, not to mention my poor hands!) I went with it anyway.

The other happy vegan is a space freak. He's always watching NASA channel, science fiction movies, staring at the stars (he's got one of those fancy telescopes, a gift from me..... wish he had time to use it more), and making his best efforts to explain the science of it all to me. I don't want to hear any of it.... as you might also recall, I see smoke, mystery and glitter dust when I look to the sky, don't take that away from me. Yes, he's a sciencey space freak and he had a birthday recently. I plotted and planned a special space cake for quite a while. Just before his birthday, he announced "NO CAKE!"

WTF???????

I was left dangling without a plan. The best I could do was a feeble attempt at galaxy cookies and some purple, blue and black coloring. WAIT? WHAT? Purple, blue and black??? Isn't that a prompt for Vegan Month of Food, if I decide to do it for 2016?

Yay! Besides, I already had the meringues (hundreds of 'em) done.

Scroll below and you'll see some photos. If you look on YouTube, there is an absolute masterful person going by the name "SweetAmbs" who has created something called "galaxy cookies." I saw them long ago, and fell in love with them. The YouTube version is not vegan, but no biggie, I simply veganized using royal icing with aquafaba. The colors are Wilton brand synthetic coloring which as of now is still vegan, vegan glitters and sprinkles (Sweetopolita on Etsy ... she has a vegan section) and my own vegan cake/frosting recipes. The cookies were a labor of love, they are not perfect by a long shot. It was the the first time I've ever made them. If you take the time to watch the tutorial on YouTube, you will understand how difficult these actually were in the size I chose (nickle size, I'm a fool!)

Don't hold it against me as a "Pinterest fail" when you see SweetAmbs Galaxy Cookies, and then see mine. My issue with my galaxy cookies are that they are not even close as "clean" looking as the beauties on YouTube. This has nothing to do with the "vegan" of it all, rather the size of my cookies, as already mentioned, the smaller cookies are about the size of a nickle, the larger ones no bigger than about a quarter. I came to realize by the end of my decorating session that the tutorial on YouTube is done with much larger cookies. All things considered they came out ok, and you know I'm honest here posting my successes, my fails and my "meh, they're ok" all the way around equally.

If you didn't already know, when using black dye use chocolate frosting as your base if possible, it will help cut down on the quantity of coloring you'll need. I used chocolate ganache for the black filling. Honestly I just cannot take the taste of icings that are colored with so much dye, it's against my organic grain, but I will comply for those who want it, and yes as a vegan baker I do get requests for it as well. No judging, you get what you ask for, as long as it's vegan. Kids seem to LOVE the choices of blue, purple or black frosting because it certainly does make for spirited contests of "what color is your tongue" among the wee ones.

Aquafaba meringues
before drying
so glossy!

Some of the meringues
after drying
and sprinkled with
vegan luster dust

More aquafaba meringues
after drying and sprinkled with vegan luster dust

More aquafaba meringues
before drying
so glossy!

I boxed up some of the cookies for him.

Cupcakes before frosting
I just "inject" any fillings into my cupcakes
Far as I'm concerned, cutting a hole in the cupcake
is a waste of time
Vegan chocolate ganache
colored with vegan synthetic food dye

SEE! This is why I loathe using black dye!
That container and spatula are still suffering from
the after effects
This is, believe it or not, vegan chocolate ganache

I wish I had a better photo
I wish I had a better end product
this is a vegan vanilla cupcake
injected with black chocolate ganache
topped with purple and blue vegan vanilla icing
vegan luster dust and stars
vegan space cookie
vegan meringue

Some of the cupcakes had ganache on top too.
Sprinkles are vegan, I get them from Sweetopolita on Etsy
She has a vegan section

I liked the galaxy cookie on this cupcake, but don't like
the cupcake photo
That cookie isn't quite perfect, none of them were,
but it's only about the size of a nickle
If you see the Galaxy Cookie tutorial
you would be more astonished at my own
nickle sized galaxy cookies

I love love LOVE the Galaxy Cookie concept, and someday when I have a little more time am going to do these again, on a normal size cookie. I give huge credit to SweetAmbs.... you make it all seem SO easy.

So, maybe there's not metal music blasting in the background, maybe I'm not wearing my black nail polish and choice of black wigs (yup, I got 'em) and oddly enough that is probably what I would've done at least as far as getting metal music here (never like to miss an opportunity for that), but heck, the other happy vegan had a birthday, and he's just not that. Despite this, yin still needs yang.

And just like the big bang, goth day is over.

xo