Cupcakes for Lindsay

You know how you meet someone sometimes and know instantly that you're going to be friends? That's how it was with Lindsay and I.

We initially bonded over our love of musical theatre, singing and Idina Menzel in 2008 and our relationship has flourished since then.

We sing together.
We make delicious gluten free, vegetarian, Ashley & Linz-friendly things.
We take hilarious adventures.
We share a love for tea,  kale, girly things, Pinterest and everything to do with hummus.

And our voices combined reach decibels that only teeny tiny dogs and unicorns can likely hear. (we take our #twosquealingsopranos hashtag quite seriously) 

I adore this woman who is a kindred spirit to me in many ways. And in the years we've known one another, the two of us have been through a lot.

She has supported me through so much, including my Crohn's diagnosis, going gluten free and dairy free (and everything else free), the end of my relationship with my ex-fiance and everything else along the way. She has been one of my biggest supporters in all my artistic endeavors and has always been there to lend a hand or an ear when I needed it most. A couple months ago I was going through a drawn out break up, Linz was there to listen, (gently) force me to eat, distract me with shopping adventures and sangria and give me flexibility to sleep on her couch for a weekend while I needed the extra support.

I've had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with her family as we've prepared for the wedding and they are some of the most delightful people I've ever encountered. Her fiance is an awesome guy and I've had so much fun with both of them over the years; I love their love. She is surrounded by so many beautiful people who love her immensely, which is further affirmation to what an exceptional person she is. Linz is kind, hilarious, talented, charming, empathetic and wonderful; she's one of the best friends I could ask for. I only hope that I've been as good of a friend to her as she has been to me.

It was such an honour when she asked me to be one of her bridesmaids, and I'm grateful that the last year has brought us closer together. The planning process has been a lot of fun and I'm so happy that I got to be so closely involved! This week has been full of wedding shenanigans and formality, culminating in the big day on Saturday. I've already cried so many times (with joy!!) about the wedding and I don't know how I'm going to keep it together this weekend. Thankfully my dress has pockets to store all the tissues I'm gonna need... 

The bridal shower was this past Sunday and I wanted to make extra-special Linz-friendly treats for everyone to enjoy so I pulled together these cupcakes. Based on a few different recipes, I was quite happy with the results and so was the bride-to-be. 

Chocolate Caramel Cupcakes for Lindsay 

Gluten free, Dairy free

Makes 18-20 cupcakes

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes
(Aka Lindsay's Dark Chocolate Quinoa Cake in miniature form)
Gluten free, Dairy free
2 c. cooked quinoa
1/3 c. almond milk
4 large organic, free-range eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 c. coconut oil
1 1/2c. organic cane sugar
1 c. cocoa powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. sea salt

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Line two cupcake tins with 18 liners. Use snazzy ones for extra pizzazz

In a blender, add the quinoa, almond milk, eggs, vanilla, and coconut oil. Blitz until smooth.

 In a separate bowl, whisk together the sugar, cocoa powder, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Once well combined, add the quinoa mixture from the blender.

Pour the batter into the cupcake liners, so that each is about 3/4 full. Bake for 35-40 minutes at 350F, until a knife or skewer inserted into the centre of  a cupcake comes out clean. Put on a cooling rack to cool.

Dairy Free Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Adapted from Martha Stewart's Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Gluten free, Dairy free  

I love to use my pink Kitchen Aid stand mixer for this recipe! This was the first time I had made it with something other than butter. It's a little more fussy and needs to be stored in the fridge (especially in 40 degree heat), but the result is incredible and creamy! 

5 large free-range, organic egg whites
1 cup + 2 tbsp organic sugar
Pinch of salt
485 g. Earth Balance Organic Coconut Spread
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Combine egg whites, sugar, and salt in the heatproof bowl of a stand mixer set over a pan of simmering water. Whisk constantly by hand until mixture is warm to the touch and sugar has dissolved (the mixture should feel completely smooth when rubbed between your fingertips).

Attach the bowl to the mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Starting on low and gradually increasing to medium-high speed, whisk until stiff (but not dry) peaks form. Continue mixing until the mixture is fluffy and glossy, and completely cool - about 8-10 minutes.

With mixer on medium-low speed, add the coconut spread a few tablespoons at a time, mixing well after each addition. Once all of the coconut spread has been added, whisk in vanilla. Scrape down sides of bowl with a flexible spatula, and continue beating until the frosting is completely smooth.

Refrigerate immediately. Whip in mixer before using if not using icing immediately.

Putting it all together

Once cupcake are cool, pipe or frost with the buttercream. I was storing the piping bag in the freezer until I was ready to pipe. The buttercream holds its shape well enough to be piped and looks really pretty, it just needs to be cold.

Drizzle with a chilled dairy free caramel - I used this one.

The cupcakes are best stored in the fridge, but should be taken out of the fridge about 5-10 minutes before serving to allow the buttercream to soften and the cupcakes to thaw a bit. The buttercream is insanely smooth and the texture contrasts nicely with the chocolatey cupcakes. The caramel makes them a bit messy, but caramel + chocolate is a divine flavor combination. All taste testers agreed!! AND they're gluten-free and dairy-free!



Can't wait to continue the celebration with Lindsay, her soon-to-be husband and all of their family and friends. It's going to be an incredible day for one of my most favourite people. I love you Linz!

Twenty Nine Years and Five Hundred Posts

It's April 8th, which means that it's time for me to celebrate the day of my birth! It's also the fifth time I've written about my birthday on the bloggy. Here's 25, 26, 27, and 28

I often find birthdays to be a time for reflecting (as I've written about before) but this feeling was amplified this weekend with questions like "how have things changed for you since last year?" and "what do you think you've learned each year since you were born?". Well, in 29 years I've learned and grown a lot and even in just the last year so much has changed, but in lots of positive ways. 

I'm trying not to obsess about being in the last year of my 20's. Age is just a number and my life so far has been quite a gift; I don't expect that to change when I head into a new decade. I'm continuing to embrace this year as the year of 'serendipity' and plan to continue laughing lots, smiling widely (and sometimes loudly I'm told), wearing dresses, frolicking in the sunshine and living the life of my dreams. 

All the while making room for delicious gluten free, vegan lemon cake sometimes. (Thanks Bunner's!)

This entry also marks my 500th post on this blog, which is a little unbelievable to me. I'm not sure I expected to write this much when I started this little corner of the internet for me to share my thoughts, yet here we are! I look forward to continuing to write and share and grow as a result of this space. Thank you for continuing to read and engage - I appreciate you. 

I had a wonderful weekend celebrating my special day with sweet friends, an awesome pot luck, delicious treats, dresses and dancing. I will continue to celebrate with more cake and wine this evening as I embark on the next 364 days with the same effervescence, zeal, determination and joy. Here we go... 

A Very Happy Birthday Gal, Everywhere You Look

This weekend marked the beginning of another year in my 20's, and I feel so blessed to have spent it with some of my most favourite people, in some of the coolest places, doing some of my absolute favourite things!!

Saturday was just all around awesome. I started off with a great spin class and then spent the afternoon relaxing and blissing out with my little sister at Body Blitz. I. Love. That. Place! I always leave feeling 100x more relaxed and happy and joyous. I can't wait until they open their east end location!

Saturday night involved copious amounts of sushi, a great playlist, amazing cake from LPK'S Culinary Groove, beautiful friends and a Full House puzzle.

The Full House puzzle was an amazing gift from Ashley and after I dumped it out on the floor we had no choice but to spend the next hour putting it together.

When's the last time you did a puzzle without your grandma?!

You got it dude.

Other sweet gifts included fun sparkly things, hair bows and this perfect notebook

They know me too well… We followed up the house shenanigans with a trip to The Boat for Chronologic where we danced like no one was watchin’. They start off with music from the 1890’s and play songs all the way up to the present day, spending a whole lot of time in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. It was all sorts of amazing and I laughed, smiled and squealed the night away.

There were Ashley’s galore, my little sister, Charlie’s Angels, friends, roomates, my high school sweetheart and complete strangers who did things like sing happy birthday to me and/or buy me drinks.

My actual birthday was Sunday and I had a wonderful day with more people that I adore, wonderful food (including a stellar dinner at Hogtown Vegan), flowers, sweet gifts, sunshine and a birthday nap. The birthday goodness continued into Monday with beautiful flowers and cards from my awesometown team at work.

I am a very happy girl.

Thank you to everyone who was a part of such a wonderful weekend of joy including everyone’s awesome messages on the Twitter and Facebook! I am so very excited for the year ahead!

In the spirit of my birth week and fun outings… I’m giving away a pair of tickets to DefineTO happening this Thursday April 12 at the Fifth. DefineTO is encouraging people to “be the exception, not the rule” by being passionate, fearless and social and using social media to spread good and connect the awesome people of Toronto. The proceeds of the event will be going to The Remix Project.

In order to win, go follow DefineTO on the Twitter and then tweet “Hey @ashleydtl I wanna be the exception, not the rule and support @theremixproject @defineTO” I’ll be choosing one winner after 5pm today from all the twitter entries. Good luck!

My Birth Week

Thank you for all your birthday well wishes on facebook, the blog and twitter. I really appreciate your words and was thrilled to have you share a part in my special day!!

I am still giddy on flip side of such an incredible weekend!

I had an action packed birthday and unfortunately I caught a cold about two days prior, making it a little more challenging than I had anticipated. On Thursday morning I awoke to find that the roommates had decorated my kitchen cabinet in my honour.  They even used my extra special pink chalk. Made me smile! Mother nature missed the memo on the date of my birth and decided that Thursday would be a rainy day. I tried not to let it get me down, grabbed my umbrella and headed to my Thursday WW meetings. My lunchtime members surprised me with a cake (created from WW 1 pt cakes, which I couldn’t eat, but the sentiment was so appreciated!!) and a sweet sweet card. So thoughtful! After my meetings I enjoyed an awesome lunch with Melly at Camros Kale salad, funny squash stew & red rice and millet salad which was absolutely delicious as always. We followed it up with some goji-chocolate raw cheesecake. It was like a little piece of heaven!! All birthdays need good cake, and this did not disappoint. After a birthday nap, a walk and quick (unphotographed) dinner with my roommate, and boot camp, I went out with some friends to karaoke. I sang a couple of songs (Heartbreaker a la Pat Benatar and Just a Girl) and realized that my voice was going as a result of my sickness. Definitely an awesome way to cap off my day of birth and get in some quality time with some of my favourite people!

After getting in some more quality time with other friends on Friday night, I was ready for the big party on Saturday! I haven’t had a proper birthday party in a very long time, so I was ultra excited when the roommates suggested we combine our housewarming with mine and Matthew’s birthdays for a big shindig. There were a lot of preparations at the house for much of the day, including the creation of some mini raw chocolate cream cakesand raw chocolate chip cookie dough bites which got the triple thumbs up from the roommates. Seriously, the Pure2Raw gals rock my universe. Super easy-to-make raw treats that are healthy and delicious!

I was pretty excited about my birthday dress. I had found it at Mendocino a few weeks ago and knew it would be absolutely perfect for the party. Such a fun party dress in my favourite colour and an excuse to wear sky high heels!!

I spent the whole night chatting, laughing, smiling, and dancing with amazing friends, old and new!!We had set up a costume corner and everyone kept getting progressively more dressed up by the end of the night. It was hilarious!!The party was a huge success!!
I think by the end of the night my face hurt from smiling so much.

The party also solidified how happy I am in my new place with my roommates. When everything was ready to go before our guests had arrived we started to have a mini dance party with just the four of us. I said to them “no one could show up right now and we could spend the night dancing and I would be the happiest gal on earth” and I truly meant it. The other guests (and their amazing attire) were simply the icing on the cake and it was so special to be surrounded by such an amazing group of people for my special day!!

My birth week is starting to come to a close, although it’s pushing into a bit of a birth month as I’m having a birthday dinner with my dear friend Charis tonight and then spending some quality time with my dad next week. While it will be nice to get back into a bit of a normal routine, I would be lying if I said I didn’t love it!!

Pink, Cake And Beautiful Friends – A Reflection on My 26th Birthday

Birthdays are often a time for reflecting. I’ve realized over the past week that while many things have changed over the years (even from this time last year), many things still remain the same…

I love the colour pink…17th birthday

And dressing up… 6th birthday22nd birthday 24th birthday

And cake! 5th birthday6th birthday18th birthday 20th birthday25th birthday

And I am so lucky to be surrounded by beautiful friends. 7th birthday
20th birthday
21st birthday
23rd birthday 25th birthday

All of these things make me incredibly happy and I look forward to an amazing year ahead.

Birthday festivities started off with a beautiful long weekend filled with friends and delightful food. Vegetable tofu curry at Lady Marmalade for brunch on Friday Pear & spinach salad on the patio at Quigley’s on Monday Super yummy gluten free vegan cookies from my sweet friend (and WW receptionist) Kelly.

The amazing weather is exactly what I needed to start the month of April of fresh! Melly and I headed up for smoothies and pedicures to kick start the week. Obviously I got pink… Looking forward to a fun night out tonight and an extra special party on the weekend where I will be sporting a pink party dress, enjoying delicious cake (and other raw goodies) surrounded by my wonderful friends!!