Vegan vanilla frosting

My sister's birthday is next week so I recreated the unicorn cake I made a couple of weeks ago with some adjustments.  No dairy, eggs or gluten.

She's a fan of rice krispie treats so I made the "cake" portion out of those, formed in cake pans.  They are easy to make dairy and gluten free by replacing the butter with Earth Balance spread.

Most of the recipes I found for dairy free or vegan frosting replaced butter with shortening.  There is no way that would fly, so I just replaced the butter in my regular recipe with Earth Balance.  This is not a one to one replacement - I barely needed any of the spread. 

Vegan Vanilla Frosting

• 3 Tbsp vegan butter - I used Earth Balance Soy Free
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 4 Tbsp almond milk

I put everything in the mixer at once; there is so little vegan butter that it wasn't something I could cream like I would with regular butter.  This makes a nice, smooth frosting.

Then I recreated the unicorn cake the best I could.  The frosting consistency is very different and didn't get as fluffy as the regular buttercream, but it was still pretty good.

Happy (almost) Birthday, Sara!

Ben at the workbench

Over the weekend Ben came out to the workbench with me.  He wanted to make a pendant for himself and sketched out the design to saw from copper.  This was his first time using the saw so I gave him a quick tutorial and led the blade onto the piece for him.

He's a natural!  He followed the instructions and was able to get through most of the piece without help, even understanding how to back off at the turns and let the blade lead.  I helped with a couple of the really sharp corners and he only broke two saw blades.  My first attempt at sawing resulted in broken blades galore and a fair amount of swearing, so I was really surprised at how easily he cut out his design.  

I don't really know what the point of this calligraphy-ish letter L is...something about an Anime character.  

After the initial sawing, he filed and sanded the edges of the pendant and then added a hole for a jump ring.

We tossed it in the tumbler for a few hours and then he used the buffer to do the final polish.  I added the leather cording for him so he could wear the finished product as a necklace.  

He was so excited about the process that he wanted to make a second pendant.  This one was for him to wear for his math test this week; a good luck charm.

His new plan for the summer is to clear a spot in the workspace to add a small desk where he can sit and work with me.  I do most of my jewelry work in the early mornings and since we are both morning people, this could work!  Now I need to find a small desk at a yard sale...

Unicorn cake

Our Easter meal was just for our little family of four so we didn't need a giant dessert. But I felt like making something creative and decided on a simple, small unicorn cake.

Simple, yes.  Quick?  No.  I don't make cakes as often as I used to and I'm out of practice...but I needed a few different colors of frosting and made the ears from chocolate so those elements took some time.

I used three layers of six inch cake to make a tallish stack.

I've seen some unicorn cakes with a horn made of fondant or chocolate, but I found this swirled lollipop for $1 at Walmart and never looked back.  

I used the Wilton ColorSwirl 3 Color Coupler to add the mane (I only used two colors).  It works great once it's all set up and ready to pipe, but getting the bags of frosting situated took some patience.  Next time I will load less frosting into each bag and refill if needed - I think that would make the pieces easier to fit together and less likely to come apart.

Once it was all assembled, I dusted the cake liberally with disco dust for some added flair.  I love that stuff - it really makes a difference, especially on a cake decorated like a magical creature.

I'll do this one again at some point - it was perfect for a smaller dessert and was pretty cute if I do say so myself.