Today I went to the Vegetarian Food Festival at the East End school. I wanted to go last year and the year before, but something always managed to come up, making me unable to attend. This year, once I realized that it was happening this weekend, I made the decision that I had to go. A big draw for me was the free food samples (I love free food!). There was food to try from Green Elephant, Blue Elephant and a few other vendors were also offering samples for visitors to try.
I think that Blue Elephant had the best display for their samples. It was exciting for me to be able to try food from places that I have not been to yet or might not be able to try (for various reasons), such as Blue Elephant or Girl Gone Raw. The specific draw this year for me, was the hope that Ahimsa Custom Cakes might have samples that I would be able to try. I "like" them on Facebook, which allows me to see new cake photos in my news feed every so often and it always intrigued me how they only made vegan cakes. I love vegan food in general and I love to try new vegan cupcakes specifically. I will be honest and say that the cake samples were not actually cupcakes, but they were served in tiny little cups, so I will stretch my definition of a cupcake to include that.
The cupcake on the left is the French Toast cake with Maple Cinnamon frosting and the one of the right is a Double Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Bean frosting. It's always hard to determine a cupcake's quality based on such a tiny sample, specifically this time since I did share my sample with another person and they shared theirs with me. That just means that I can't go in depth in my judgment of the cupcakes or the frosting, since I really only had a brief taste for each one.
Both cupcakes were very moist and delicious. The French Toast cake was definitely the favorite out of the two, with a very strong cinnamon flavor and a very smooth frosting. The chocolate cake was also good, but I felt like it would make a better Whoopie pie than a cake. Specifically because the frosting was gritty, just like the Whoopie pies of my youth that I loved oh so much. I have been looking for a Whoopie pie with a gritty sugary filling for years, but have yet to find it. The Vanilla Bean frosting would make my ideal Whoopie pie filling and I think that is really the only reason that I immediately made that Whoopie pie connection. Plus, as a Mainer aren't Whoopie pies supposed to be on my mind at all times?
The French Toast cupcake was also a little more attractive than the Chocolate one, but that was only because the poor chocolate cupcake's frosting had been stuck to the cover of the cup, which might have occurred because I tipped it over a few times...
So adorable! I am pretty sure that if someone didn't already know that the cakes Ahimsa Custom Cakes makes are vegan, that they would be able to tell at all. They also make sculpted cakes, which you can see some samples of in the portfolio on their website:
http://www.ahimsacustomcakes.com/Home_Page.php
The cupcake on the left is the French Toast cake with Maple Cinnamon frosting and the one of the right is a Double Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Bean frosting. It's always hard to determine a cupcake's quality based on such a tiny sample, specifically this time since I did share my sample with another person and they shared theirs with me. That just means that I can't go in depth in my judgment of the cupcakes or the frosting, since I really only had a brief taste for each one.
So adorable! I am pretty sure that if someone didn't already know that the cakes Ahimsa Custom Cakes makes are vegan, that they would be able to tell at all. They also make sculpted cakes, which you can see some samples of in the portfolio on their website:
I often have doctor appointments in the morning over in Brunswick, which makes me extremely happy since I can stop into Wild Oats after the appointment to get breakfast and a treat for later in the day. For breakfast I like getting the morning glory muffin or sometimes a bagel if the mood hits. Recently on my trips in I have been buying cookies, but the last time I went in I decided to get a cupcake. Their cupcakes are massive. Usually, I would cut it in half and either share with a friend or save the other half for later, but that day I decided to eat the whole thing. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that it was a really good chocolate cupcake. 