Vegan Baker Wednesday: Jess of Compassionate Cake

It’s Vegan Baker Wednesday!

Today’s vegan baker is Jess of Compassionate Cake, a new business based in Milwaukee. I met Jess after finding her cupcakes at a bake sale earlier this year. She has been making consistently amazing and impressive baked goods and I’ve been lucky enough to try lots of them! Jess provides cupcakes for a local, volunteer-run coffee shop on the East Side, Brewing Grounds for Change. Together, they just launched a Kickstarter to raise money for a commercial oven so Compassionate Cake can have a storefront! Please consider donating! The fundraising will run through October and there are t-shirts, free cupcakes, and more in it for contributors. Help a great cause-starting up an amazing vegan bakery in Milwaukee! Instead of, you know, funding someone’s vacation or burning desire to own a Vitamix. But let’s not derail the introduction to such a wonderful person. Jess makes beautiful baked goods and she also has a kind heart.

I mean, look:

White Chocolate Cheesecake with Biscoff Crust. And it was my birthday cake!

Look at even more photos!

Now let’s talk to Jess!

What was your experience going to culinary school and how has working with food influenced your decision to be a vegan baker?
Culinary school was pretty tough! I was a vegetarian at the time (in the mid 90′s) and being so caused some eyebrows to be raised and some evil looks. Even though I graduated with good marks, I did fail exams due to the fact that my chicken wasn’t seasoned enough or that the beef tenderloin was cooked to the wrong temp. I even remember there was a field trip to the slaughterhouse! Needless to say, I was absent that day! I never backed down on my morals on animals and how I feel about them. Sticking to my guns was what pulled me through.
I have always known that I wanted to be a chef from early on. Maybe it was too many re-runs of Three’s Company with Jack Tripper being a chef! I would read cookbooks like they were novels. First, It was The Joy of Cooking, next I read all of Julia Child’s books, soon it was vintage cookbooks found at rummage sales. My Grandma would renew my subscription to Bon Appetite every year for Christmas. Even though these books and magazines taught you how to cook and prepare meat, there was still a lot of other great information in them that didn’t pertain to meat.

Were you involved in art before cake decorating and how did you become so skillful at what you do?
That’s very nice of you to say:) My parents were always involving art in mine and my sister’s life. I remember us being in a lot of art classes growing up. Both my parents are really crafty. My mom is a great crafter and embroiderer and my dad does beautiful stained glass work. My sister is an excellent drawer. Instead of going out a lot as a kid, I would buy a container of Betty Crocker canned frosting and practice decorating over and over day after day. I remember it took me forever to master a shell border! When most kids were outside playing after school, I would beg my mom if I could make cookies or petite fours and I would play with marzipan like it was play-doh. I was a weird kid!

In addition to making cupcakes and cakes, you are working on French pastry. And you have sparkly Marie Antoinette business cards! What kinds of recipes are you creating and how did you become inspired by European-style bakery?
I have always been interested in France. I am French and Belgium on my mother’s side so maybe that’s where the fascination comes from. It is known that I have ancestors who ran a bakery in Belgium and the King and Queen used to send their servants there daily for their bakery. That’s where the Marie Antoinette business cards come in! As a nod to my ancestors. Baking is in my blood! I like to do European style bakery because it is not usually vegan friendly. I guess it is my way of proving that anything can be made vegan! I love to make Greek Baklava, Italian Pizzelle cookies, French Macaroons, etc. I worked forever on the right pate a choux for creme puffs and eclairs. I currently am trying to master the French Madeline and Ladyfingers. Those have been a little rough!

You bake for Brewing Grounds for Change, a cooperative coffee shop in Milwaukee. What is that experience like and what opportunities have come out of it so far?
Brewing Grounds has been AMAZING to me! I cannot even begin to tell you how kind they have been. They are so open to ideas and give me complete creative free will. They truly are a joy to work with! Every one of them! Right now, we just launched a Kickstarter program that is raising money to help buy an oven. That way I can bake right there in the shop. I am hoping to bring in vegan baked goods that you do not normally see such as gourmet cheezecakes, rice krispie squares, cakes by the slice, and maybe some artisan chocolates. Also, personalized special occasion cakes and wedding cakes.

What has the process of creating your business been like? What are your core objectives and values?
I am proud that I stand behind an all vegan based business. I have had a few inquires about if I did anything that was non vegan or that I was willing to. My reply is no. I feel that there are too many food businesses out there that offer maybe 1 or 2 items that are vegan. I like to have everything vegan so that there is no guessing. It makes vegans happy and animals happy too:)

What is the vegan scene like in Milwaukee and what are your favorite vegan food spots?
I think the vegan scene in Milwaukee is awesome! I have had the pleasure in meeting some wonderful people! You, Colleen, (from Vegan Milwaukee) Steph, (from Milwaukee Vegan Bake Sale) and Lindsay are some of the nicest I have met in a long time! As far as the food goes in Milwaukee, it is no secret that I LOVE The Comet!!! It is my was my first and still is my favorite! I also really love Bel Air Cantina! Anodyne makes a mean soy latte. Brewing Grounds for Change makes the best Dirty Chai. Through Vegan Milwaukee I found the little gem known as Babe’s for the Espresso Oreo Soy ice cream.

Thank you, Jess!
Please follow Compassionate Cake on Facebook, and donate to help open the storefront at Brewing Grounds!

MoFo #18: Chicago and Milwaukee eats in a day

Growing up near Chicago and currently living in Milwaukee, I spend the majority of my time between these two cities. Both have great vegan food options that I always take advantage of and seek out more. I spent Thanksgiving in the suburbs of Chicago, but had to head back to Milwaukee early on Black Friday. I had breakfast at Beans and Barley, a place I’ve blogged about several times in the past praising their awesome vegan options and bakery goods.

This is their basic tofu scramble with a sesame bagel and herb roasted potatoes. I opted for them to mix veggie sausage in the scramble. Mmm.
My first choice was the pesto tofu scramble, but the pesto had cheese in it! The same thing has happened in other places when it comes to pesto brunch items. Vegan pesto, please! Pesto scramble sounds really good!

When I got home my plans for the day weren’t really happening. I was planning on going to Chicago the next day to set up book events, eat, and visit my favorite city, so I hopped on a train and went Friday instead. I went around Wicker Park, bought some shoes and tights (I seriously don’t know how to shop. I only ever come home with partial outfits), and had dinner at The Chicago Diner.

Mozzarella sticks with Teese. The Diner is currently doing a fundraiser for Mercy for Animals where every $1 from purchase of the mozzarella sticks goes to the organization! Come out to the Diner, get some delicious food, and a portion of your money will go to MFA. Sweet deal!

I opted for a dinner of appetizers. I almost regret not getting the Radical Reuben since that’s what I do nearly every time I’m there because it’s so fucking good, but variety is good too!

Strawberry Shake!

MoFo #10: Soup’s On!

I’m halfway done with MoFo! But the month is more than half over! I’m leaving for NYC tomorrow at 6am, so if I get a chance to post over the next four days, it’ll be coming from my phone! I’m going to let myself loose in Manhattan to go to a bunch of galleries, museums, and restaurants. If anyone would like to do a late lunch tomorrow, here’s my proposition on the PPK!
Come see Melisser and I at Champs Bakery in Brooklyn this Saturday from 7-9pm for a book signing party!

For something ever so slightly less exciting…lunch at school.
I have three hour breaks in between my two classes on Tuesday and Thursday. I always forget my lunch. I’ll make it, stick it in the fridge, then forget to grab it on the way out. It’s an epidemic. I’m nearly considering setting an alarm for before I leave so I remember…but I usually leave at different times. And that seems a bit excessive.

So, I’m left to find lunch to buy in the area. My personal favorite is ordering Kung Pao Tofu from Jing’s Chinese restaurant and walking over to pick it up. Maybe that’s why I subconsciously forget my lunch, because I equate that with Chinese food. No idea.
This Tuesday, I decided to go to Soup’s On!, a soup (and sandwich/baked goods) place that offers a different, clearly-marked vegan option every day.

The soup du jour was ginger lentil that day (hey, can you tell this is in Wisconsin from the other menu items?).

The atmosphere is warm and welcoming, and an art gallery is annexed in the restaurant. There is also rotating work on the walls of the cafe. The owner is friendly and helpful, and offers a host of garnishes for the soup. The self-serve area also has a few kinds of peppers, chopped veggies, about twenty different hot sauces, and more.

Here was the ginger lentil soup I got. I topped it with carrots, scallions, chopped onion, peppers, and black pepper. It came with a side of local flaxseed bread. Warm and cozy.

MoFo #9: Milwaukee Vegan Bake Sale

Here’s what I brought home from last weekend’s Milwaukee Vegan Bake Sale:

Cookies, pretzels, scones, and truffles:

Spicy Dilly Beans:

Some sort of banana cream chocolate scone sammich!

I’m going to let the rest of the pictures from the bake sale speak for themselves, but let me just say…the bake sale made $866! Holy shit. We got donations from vegans and non-vegans alike, who were all ecstatic to be there and support the Urban Ecology Center (where the bake sale was held) and The Hunger Task Force.

Here’s all the baked goods that nearly sold out:

I baked Autumn Clouds Pumpkin Cookies and Peanut Butter Molasses Cookies:

The Urban Ecology Center is a really awesome place!

MoFo #7: Catch up MoFo-Kitchen Disasters ft. Bloody Mary Cookies

I’m waiting around school for the next hour until my ride gets here, so I thought I’d do one of my writing posts. I know this is my second MoFo of today, but I had to switch things around a bit since YouTube probably hates me because my video blog won’t upload. I’ll make that post once I get that all figured out!

Glass Explosion:
So when I think of past kitchen disasters the first thing that comes to mind is the butternut squash glass explosion disaster. This is when I learned about glass transition, the reversible transition in amorphous materials (or in amorphous regions within semicrystalline materials) from a hard and relatively brittle state into a molten or rubber-like state (actually I just copied and pasted that off of Wikipedia). Anyway, I was baking a butternut squash in a glass pan one day. I was 15 or 16 at the time and it was the first time I was cooking a squash. I took it out of the oven and it was really hot, so I thought it would be a good idea to cool off the pan faster by running it under cold water and it shattered! Luckily it was in the sink at the time and glass shards didn’t go flying, so the main loss was the 9×13 glass baking pan. And thereafter I became cautious when running water on hot dishes!
I scoured my old photo storage websites to see if I could find the photo I took, but I did find some MS paint illustrations I did over the years, like pancake soup.

The Great Soy Milk Spill of 2007:
One day when I was baking cookies, I had a small measuring cup maybe half-full of soy milk sitting on the counter. The next thing I knew, I hit the measuring cup, it went flying, and there was soy milk ALL over the kitchen. All over the table, on the floor, on the refrigerator, on the stove, on the side of the cabinets, and in every nook and cranny of the kitchen. The reason this spill stands out is that I have no idea how maybe 1/3 cup of soy milk got absolutely EVERYWHERE.

Bloody Mary Cookies:
I think this one was a disaster waiting to happen. My friend Garrick and I made a joke about making bloody mary cookies and I decided to be gross and go through with it for the sake of experimentation. These cookies contained everything you would find in a bloody mary, right down to the tomato juice and vodka. Gulp.
Admittedly, the cookies weren’t awful, just incredibly weird. When people bite into a cookie, they expect sugary sweetness and flavor. These certainly had flavor, but weren’t working as cookies. I think it would be worth trying to make them into a savory biscuit, however. If anyone wants to take on that challenge, let me know how they turn out!

Here they are, in all their glory:

What are your notable kitchen disasters?

MoFo #6: Go Max Go Bars!

I used MoFo as an excuse to try the other half of the Go Max Go candy bars that I haven’t had yet. I just finished the other half of the Buccaneer bar from this morning, so the flavor is still fresh in my mind to write about.
A few years ago, Go Max Go Foods!! put out a repertoire of vegan candy bars based off of non-vegan Snickers (Jokerz), Milky Way (Twilight), Three Musketeers (Buccaneer), and Almond Joy (Mahalo).

I reviewed a few deli items from Beans and Barley earlier this month. On that trip, I picked up Buccaneer and Mahalo bars to review for MoFo. They’ve been sitting in my desk drawer for over a week. Every so often I would remember they’re in there, but I made myself wait until it was MoFo time to eat them. I finally did, today! I even have half of a Mahalo bar waiting at home for me!

First up is the Buccaneer bar, based off of Three Musketeers.
The nouget inside is dense, chocolatey, and sweet. It’s a lot more rich than the light and airy nougat of Three Muskateers, but I’m not really complaining.

Mahalo!
I didn’t really get into Almond Joy bars pre-gan, but I love coconut now so I was excited about this candy bar. I can’t remember what the original tastes like, but I like the Mahalo bar in its own right. It’s intensely coconutty and has a crunch with the whole almonds nestled in the bar.

Twilight and Jokerz bars from the past!

MoFo #5: Milwaukee Vegan Meetup at Casablanca buffet, interviewing, and book signing

The first event-filled MoFo weekend has come to a close! I had a blast and met some wonderful people.
The weekend (I have Fridays “off”!) started with waking up at 4am and to go to my friend’s school to talk to his classes about veganism and bake cookies with them. I accidentally said “shit” and “titties” thus failing as a role model right off the bat, but I guess the kids thought I was pretty cool and I thought they were pretty cool too. About 20 kids and I baked 6 trays of Giant Bakery Style Double Chocolate Chip Cookies, ate them all, then called it a day. Before our drive back to Milwaukee, we got a light dinner of lentil soup, tabouli, falafel, and COFFEE.
We all had a blast and they said a cooking/baking club would be something they would be interested in starting up now! Everything went so smoothly and I had a lot of fun working with them. Doing baking workshops with kids is definitely something I’d be interested in doing again, maybe locally as a formal class sometime in the near future! With a little planning and research, I think that would totally work if people were interested! I’ll do a more formal post on this in the near future, with pictures, on the cookie blog!

The next morning was lunch at Casablanca with the Milwaukee Vegan Meetup Group.
I just found out that day that they have a vegetarian lunch buffet EVERY DAY (except Sunday) for $7.95!
AND IT WAS SO SOSOSOSOSOSOOSOSOSOSO GOOD! I can’t believe I didn’t know this already, especially living in the neighborhood! This truly is the weekend (and month, obviously) of vegan food discoveries.
They made sure everything was vegan for the meetup and there was a huuuuuuuge spread of food, so naturally I loaded up platefuls.
The choices were endless. Several different fruits, five salads, veggies, falafel, hummus, pita, baba ghanouj, lentil soup, tahini sauce and potatos, a bunch of other sauces, five different veggie stews and stirfries, and dessert (WHICH WAS VEGAN!).

My first plate: pineapple, watermelon, hummus, tabouli, baba ghanouj, pita, falafel, rice, broccoli dish, tahini sauce, eggplant/tomato dish.

My second plate (moderation has no place here).

Confession: I have never had baklava. I didn’t know about it until after I became vegan and just never got around to making my own and hadn’t come across vegan baklava until now. I was so excited when the woman at Casablanca said that they don’t use honey in their pastries, but a sugar syrup.
Sweet, sticky goodness.

Group shot.
I had the pleasure of meeting Colleen of Vegan Milwaukee for the first time over the weekend, seeing people from previous events, and signing some books!

Photo from Kim Fisher-Isaacs

The end.

Just kidding. The events of this weekend/week haven’t stopped!
The next day, I met up with Lori and Paul Fredrich of Burp! Blog at Brewed Cafe on Brady Street in Milwaukee for afternoon chai and to chat about the cookie book. We talked about life and restaurants in Milwaukee, food blogging, and cookies. We hope to join forces in the near future and possibly organize some events with Milwaukee food bloggers! Here is the article Lori wrote for the Food Crush column on the Inside Milwaukee website!
The awesome vegan discovery part of today was Glorioso’s Italian market that I stopped in after our meeting, and wrote about in my previous MoFo post!

Today was my book signing at my school, the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. I had class during the first two hours of the signing, so I was only there for the last half hour. When I got there, I signed some books and talked with people who came to the table in the cafe. Nancy Stohs, the food editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was in attendance. We spoke for a while, as she will be doing an article in the paper this December!

Now it’s really the end of this post. Here’s what to look forward to later this week: birthday cakes, a giveaway of American Vegan Kitchen by Tamasin Noyes, the Milwaukee Vegan Bake Sale, and my Barely Legal Vegan MoFo: Doing Your Thing at a Young Vegan Age video blog (if YouTube ever cooperates!).

Poster design by MIAD Communication Design senior Molly Radke

MoFo #4: Chocolate Covered Pomegranate Seeds, Loaded Focaccia, and Local Groceries

I just finished scarfing down some leftovers before being able to type this. Yum yum yum.

This dinner was the result of spontaneity. I’ve lived a block away from this AMAZING Italian grocery store and have yet to set foot into in until yesterday. I’m kind of kicking myself for that delay because I was instantly enamored by the walls of infused olive oils, canned Italian veggies, bulk spices, and so much more.

I really wanted to leave with some rosemary infused olive oil, blood orange balsamic glaze, and an infinite amount of jars of different kinds of peppers, but I resisted spending too much money (a housewarming gift for myself in a few weeks, perhaps?) and picked up a modest amount of nice groceries: a bottle of olive oil, fire roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, garlic, lemon granita, and Greek oregano.

I turned all these ingredients into a loaf of focaccia, based off the recipe in Veganomicon. There’s fresh garlic, peppers, artichokes, and spices kneaded into the dough, then scattered on top and roasted in the oven.

I finished the light meal with chocolate covered pomegranate seeds, inspired by the tutorial on Urban Vegan.
Check it out for yourself. The dark chocolate complements the juicy delicate flavor of the pomegranate seeds, something I wouldn’t have thought of doing!

Plated, with olive oil. This oil was really fruity.

The spread

MoFo #3: Pumpkins!

My Halloween weekend was pretty low-key what with work and errands to take care of, and the lack of celebrating made me kind of sad, so I’m living vicariously through pumpkin-themed things.
You could imagine my excitement when I saw Beans and Barley had vegan pumpkin pie in their bakery case earlier this week, so with MoFo in mind, I grabbed a slice to go.

I’ve made vegan pumpkin pie for Halloween and Thanksgiving in the past using agar to set up the filling, but pie making just didn’t happen this Halloween, so I’m glad I got a slice to showcase and devour. This crust was flaky and lightly flavored, and the pumpkin pie was absolutely creamy and flavorful. I’m not sure what they used as a base for the pie, but it was good!

My grandma brought me that pumpkin hiding in the back of the photo when she visited back in September. I’ve been trying to plan a carving date with a few friends, but it wasn’t happening, so fuck, I decided to scoop out all the goop tonight, make toasty seeds, and carve the pumpkin while the seeds were in the oven.

Jack o’ Lantern!

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds!

I made some jasmine rice, caramelized an onion, drizzled pomegranate balsamic, and garnished with pumpkin seeds.

And that concludes my pumpkin-themed post! Today I woke up at 4am and am going to my friend’s school in Indiana to talk to the kids about baking, my cookbook, and art! I’m actually en routw right now and this post is coming from my phone. If I wake up mentally soon, I’ll be selling some books and doing a cookie baking workshop with them. I’ll report back on that day, probably via video blog, for my next MoFo post and a blog about that day will be on The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur!

Vegan Week: The Ultimate

Note: I will be posting all about Chicago VeganMania and the Milwaukee events on Vegan Cookie Connoisseur soon! There’s so much to blog about from last week! This post is about what we did and the places we ate at before, in-between, and after the major events!

Isa Chandra Moskowitz flew into Milwaukee on Tuesday and the week started off with dinner at Comet Cafe with Isa, Lindsay, Ellie, Elena, Mandi, Amy, Tanya, and Kat!

(L to R: Amy, Mandi, Isa, Ellie)

We started out with Comet’s vegan deep fried ribs (“the best things ever”) that come with 3 dipping sauces, and some hummus.

I got the open-faced meatloaf sandwich. I’ve blogged about this monster of a sandwich before, and here it is again in all its glory:

Lemon poppyseed cupcake, one of the three desserts we all shared:

Isa and me at the end of the night:

Wednesday was devoted to school and preparing for Thursday, when Louzilla would arrive in Milwaukee and Isa’s demos at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee would take place.
I got to the airport to pick up Louzilla and we had a bus adventure back to my apartment where we dropped our stuff off, had a breather for a moment over a container of hummus, then headed over to the university.

Isa’s first cooking demo was about root veggie chili. She demonstrated chopping vegetables, talked about the different root vegetables, and made some kickass chili.

The lovely Isa chopping an onion:

Talking about root veggies:

Isa is FIERCE:

Sample of chili nomnomz:

A video where she demonstrates how to hold a knife properly and chop vegetables:

After this demo, I had class at the art museum, so Louzilla and I headed over there, just made it, then we headed back to the university after my class for Isa’s second presentation about Baketivism. I made Chocolate Peppermint Cream Bars, Ginger Cookies, and Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies for that presentation…but more about cookies on the cookie blog soon!

That night we all piled in Lindsay’s car and went out for pizza at Classic Slice, made a list of all the establishments that have nooch shakers, and came to the conclusion that cool people sit with crossed legs.

(L to R: Christine, Ellie, John, Isa, me, Louzilla. not pictured: Lindsay and Erik)

Mediterranean pizza

Cheesy breadsticks and Veggie Lover’s pizza

Isa wrote me a haiku in my nearly destroyed copy of VwaV

Then preparation for VeganMania began!
Here’s some quesadillas Louzilla and Corey made amongst the mass cookie baking.

~VeganMania lalalala awesome super fun blog post about it coming soon on VCC!~

The day after VeganMania, Louzilla and I got food from the Riverwest Co-op for brunch.
My breakfast burrito:

Louzilla’s Rancheros plate:

Vegans doing what we do. Eating and taking pictures of what we eat.

That night, Lou and I went to Comet Cafe for dinner.
More ribs and tofu sammich.

Ribzzzz

Louzilla trying Comet ribs for the very first time.

We did it!

Then there was this apple pie we conquered.