My Second Vegan Bake Sale

Saturday, April 21st, was the day of our second bake sale for World Wide Vegan Bake Sale for 2012. Last year's was such a great success, we naturally had high hopes for this year, and we were not disappointed! Amber and I spent Thursday AND Friday baking in preparation, up to our ears in flour and sugar (hence no teaser posts). We whipped up chocolate chip cookies, wheat-free chocolate chip cookies, no-kill puppy chow, not-so-mad cowboy cookies, lemon-blueberry muffins, peanut butter blondies with peanuts and PB blondies with chocolate, raspberry chocolate chip blondies, and apple-pretzel cookies. As an after thought, we whipped up three dozen savory biscuits: pizza, cheddar-jalapeno, and cheddar-garlic, all using Follow Your Heart's Vegan Gourmet cheeses. We were barely opened for business and we had quite a crowd. It was about two hours before we could get everything labeled and get our literature/freebie table set up! We were off to a phenomenal start, but that resulted in me not getting pictures of every single thing we had. Here are the goodies that Amber and I made.

Peanut butter blondies recipe from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. I love this recipe. It's simple, only requires one bowl, and at the end you get to mash the "batter" (more like a dough) with your hands. It's an easy, fool-proof recipe that everyone LOVES. As mentioned above, we made one batch with crushed peanuts on top, and another batch with chocolate chips.

We followed the wheat-free chocolate chip cookie recipe from Veganomicon, making our own oat flour by whirring some oats in the Magic Bullet. Easy! The whole recipe is easy and the results are AMAZING. I loved the toothsome texture. They're ever-so-slightly crumblier than a classic chocolate chip cookie.

Lemon Blueberry muffin recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking. These smelled AMAZING as they were baking, and we were amazed with how beautiful they turned out. I said they looked like coffee shop muffins. Eat your hearts out, Starbucks!

Raspberry chocolate chip blondies from Vegan With a Vengeance

Here's what was left of the pizza rolls and cheesy biscuits by the time I could take pictures. These were the first items on our tables to sell-out! They FLEW outta there!

Our cookie platter, featuring classic chocolate chip cookies, cowboy cookies, and apple-pretzel cookies, plus some chocolate cupcakes that someone donated (and we whipped up an amazing peanut butter frosting for them).

We used Rice Chex for the no-kill puppy chow, making it another gluten-free option. I use this recipe here, using Earth Balance in place of butter. Lisa spent her Friday night baking up a storm, too. Here's what she brought to our delicious, colorful table:

Pecan pie! This was a hit last year and was a hit again this year!

These amazing peanut butter bars, reminiscent of a Reese's cup. Lisa used crunchy PB, so it had an added, fun texture. Also, wheat-free! These were amazing and crazy-indulgent!

And THEN, she went and made baklava. Like a baller. Fo real. The baklava really Wowed a lot of people! Lisa also made brownies, but I never got a picture of them. More donations came in from friends and fellow volunteers/activists.

These mini cheesecake bites (made by Myriam) were a HUGE hit! Made with Follow Your Heart cream cheese and tucked into little phyllo dough cups, most people bought one and promptly put them in their mouth. For several people, this was their first time having vegan cheesecake, and they LOVED it!

We also received some lovely chocolate and strawberry cupcakes, both with cream cheese frosting (made by Kim)...

energy cookies (Gasp! Something healthy!), made by Maria

Jojo donated cute kitty cookies

and some AMAZING peanut butter fudge (my personal favorite of all the items on our bake sale tables)

and Lorelei brought some cinnamon rolls that went FAST! She also brought a loaf of sweet cinnamon bread and some mini baguettes.

We also sold Throwback sodas, but we kept forgetting about them, therefore they didn't sell very fast.

We had plenty of information on TNR (Trap Neuter Return), spay & neuter, and the Save 90 movement in Hillsborough County, as well as vegan recipes, veg starter kits, and stickers (Thanks for hooking us up, Action for Animals!). And then, a crazy storm rolled in and we got hit with the sideways rain. Thankfully we still had a couple of friends hanging out with us, so we had three extra helpers as we carried our baked goods into Mojo, cleared off the tables, and set them on their sides, like barricades from the rain. It was a mad rush and my pants were soaked from the knees down. Danny and Melanie were super accommodating and let us set up shop on a table in the center of the store. There was a band playing, so it was very loud and we couldn't hear or talk to people very easily, plus there were a lot of shoppers digging through stacks of records, so it wasn't the best place for our bake sale.

Within an hour, though, the rain let up and we were back outside on the sidewalk. We were able to consolidate all of our goods and literature onto less tables.

We hung out until long past dark. After 13 hours, we gave the remaining baked goods to Mojo to sell in their cafe and continue to collect donations on our behalf. During the 13 hours we were there, we raised... (drum roll, please.) $915!!!! And every penny of that goes toward spay & neuter surgeries and medical care for stray/feral/homeless cats! We had so much fun sharing delicious vegan baked goods, hanging out with our friends, and chatting with new friends. Thank you to Mojo for hosting us again, and thank you to EVERYONE who supported our bake sale! Special thanks to Florida Voices for Animals and Silverback Peace Group for sponsoring our event and providing literature materials.

Did you participate in World Wide Vegan Bake Sale 2012? Where did you host it and where did your funds go? Tell me all about it!

Linky-Dinks & What-Nots

Happy Friday everyone!

The weekend is here! Before I get into some fun and interesting links, I have to make two local announcements.

1. Any Tampa folks here attending the Save 90 conference tomorrow, Saturday the 14th? If you want to get involved in making Hillsborough County animal shelters no-kill, please attend this free conference tomorrow at Hillsborough Community College on South Dale Mabry Highway. 1pm. It's free to attend and all the info can be found HERE.

2. One week later, on Saturday, April 21st, I'll be at the badass vegan bake sale at Mojo Books & Music in Tampa, peddling cruelty-baked goods for a worthy cause: spay & neuter and medical care for stray and feral cats. This is part of World Wide Vegan Bake Sale, and also part of Mojo's World Record Store Day celebration. If you're in the Tampa area, come on by between record stores and Earth Day celebrations for some sweet treats!

Now onto the links and other random stuff for the rest of yas!

Have you had the chia kombucha from Synergy yet? I didn't expect it to be so AWESOME! I knew that chia seeds gel when they get moist, but with the kombucha, the result is like Jell-O. Drinkable Jell-O that's good for you and doesn't contain random animal parts. I tried the Cherry Chia and LOVED IT.

These "mini peanut butter cups in a jar" by Oh She Glows look AHH-MAZING and I can't wait to make 'em! (No stove required!)

I enjoyed this little post by Just a Titch about making things happen for yourself. From that post: "And the thing about making things happen for yourself is that once you do it a little, you want to do it more."

We all know about the Dirty Dozen when it comes to fruits and veggies, but have you seen the Dirty Dozen for cosmetics? Check it out here.

Gainesville, Florida is so surprisingly vegan-friendly. You've read my posts about G-ville before, and I'm ready for another visit after learning they've opened a new vegan and gluten-free-friendly cupcake shop! Check out Sarkara Sweets Cafe.

via Ecorazzi - 20 Bands That Care About the Environment

via Our Hen House - Got vegan or animal rights books collecting dust on the shelf? Pass 'em on to make a greater impact.

via VegNews - big thanks to my blogger buddy Amber at Almost Vegan for giving Kansas City the vegan shout-out it deserves!

For all my wanderlusters -

Vegan Mojo at Mojo Books & Music

Those of you who have been reading this ol' blog for awhile may recall the vegan bake sale I participated in back in April. It was held at Mojo Books & Music in Tampa near USF, inside their not-yet-fully-opened new location. Our bake sale was a huge success and we had a wonderful turn-out and response from the public.

Mojo has been in their new store location for a few months now, and they have a coffee bar now. My pal, Lisa and I were distributing VegFest flyers one afternoon and we made a point to swing by Mojo.

We were happy to find a couple of vegan treats in their baked goods case! The barista told me they were made by Loving Hut.

Decisions, decisions... We decided to split a brownie, and then I practically squealed when I spotted this little sign.

I'm a sucker for sweet, fruity teas. We each ordered one of these.

This was definitely sweet, but not as limey or fruity as I had hoped. We made a lot of pea (flower) jokes, though.

The brownie was pretty good. It was your average brownie. It could've used some nuts or peanut butter or something. (I'm always encouraging the union of chocolate and nuts, though.) Call me bias, but I think we sold better brownies at our bake sale. ;)

Is there a Loving Hut in your city? How do you like it?

Did you participate in this year's World Wide Vegan Bake Sale?