Vanilla Bean Cupcakes, True Food Kitchen and Shoes

Last night I made Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache for todays book club meeting. I found the recipe from Post Punk Kitchen, a great resource for delicious vegan recipes.

A lot of vegan baking recipes will have some form of almond or soy milk and vinegar. If you are new to vegan baking and the milk curdles, don't worry, most recipes account for time in order to allow the milk to curdle. Also, you can use whatever kind of plant based milk you like. :)

I don't know how many of you have tried to cut open a vanilla bean, but this one was giving me some issues last night.

I finally got it open and scraped out the "plant-based caviar" :). Vanilla bean intensifies the vanilla flavor. If you don't have one/can't find one/or think they're too expensive for cupcakes it won't effect the texture of the cake.

Before baking:

After baking:

The recipe called for a ganache topping made from dark chocolate, maple syrup and almond milk.

I found these adorable cupcake liners at Hobby Lobby. At Hobby Lobby, I discovered two things:

1. Hobby Lobby has a cell phone app which you can get awesome coupons from, amazing.

2. My boyfriend likes Hobby Lobby and buys something every time we go. I do love this man.

Book Club:

For our second book club meeting we went to True Food Kitchen. This restaurant has a variety of vegan, vegetarian, gluten free and meat dishes. Most of the dishes feature fresh produce. They also have a variety of "juice" selections. I tried the carrot, apple ginger tonic.

For my meal, I tired the Teriyaki Brown Rice Bowl with tofu. It was delicious, the tofu was a wonderful texture and the brown rice was great.

After lunch we explored the Rich People Mall Biltmore Fashion Square and enjoyed our cupcakes.

In one of the shops I found shoes that should belong to me. I think we were meant to be together. They called to my feet.

Unfortunately, they cost $201. It was that one dollar that really broke my budget. Darn.

Questions of the Day:

What is your shoe budget? Do you have a limit for a pair of shoes?

I will spend up to $115 on running shoes. Other shoes? Probably $60, but that's really high for me. 

Ever try juicing for meal replacement? 

What's your favorite kind of cupcake?

I love carrot cake cupcakes with a ton of cream cheese frosting.