I don’t hate my job, per se. I do, however, hate that the eight hours per day spent at work, plus travel/preparation time, is severely cutting into my crafty time. Hmm. Maybe I’ll enjoy it even more if I don’t get to do it all that often. Or maybe I can learn to cleverly invest my paycheques and retire within the next two years, thereby freeing up all sorts of time. Or not. In the meantime, if they’re happy to pay me to hang out in the office, being helpful and productive and generally not screwing things up too much, then I’m happy to be there.
One thing I definitely love about my job, though, is the Bake Day Club. There are about 20 or so of us now who take turns bringing in delicious home baking (or even purchased donuts; we’re not picky) every Thursday. This week was my turn – my first time. Eek! It had come out some time ago that I do the whole vegan thing, so I was super determined to prove to everyone that I can bake just as well as they can, without the use of dairy or eggs. I whipped up a pan of Cranberry Lemon Zing Oat Bars from Kris Holechek’s The 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes – a crowd-pleaser if there ever was one – and these little gems:
Top-down shot:
How autumny! (Thursday being the first full day of fall, of course.) These are a variation on the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I left the chocolate chips out, replaced them with ground walnuts, and added a little extra ginger, nutmeg, and cloves (about 1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon of each) to give them a spicy pumpkin-pie feel. Oh, yes, and used mini-cupcake pans, obviously, instead of standard ones. People kept asking if I had baked them from scratch, and no one thought to ask whether there was, you know, like, tofu or something in there, ick. Yay! Chalk up another victory for tasty vegan baking!
Despite the aforementioned time crunch and sad lack of craftiness, I have managed to finish a couple of UFOs (or does that make them FOs, now?). Stay tuned….
The Witty Child 