Operation Success!

A week ago today I was surrounded by a cloud of icing sugar whilst baking for Brighton Veg Fest. Right now I'm in a hotel in Galway after spending the last six days travelling between Dublin and the west coast of Ireland. There'll be more about that when I get home but for now I wanted to tell you guys about the fest! 

I had my first ever Operation Icing stall there last Saturday and it went even better than I'd dared to imagine it would. I spent 17 hours (with one Pompoko break!) baking on the Friday after almost an entire week spent getting prepared and I still sold out of cupcakes in three and a half hours, crazy! Here's the stall...

Nick suggested I wore my Mad Caddies t-shirt because it went with the stall's colours, genius!

...after looking into the price of a real banner I ended up making my own using paper, my printer, string and two mic stands. The perfect banner for my little punk rock inspired vegan bakery! In case you don't know the name Operation Icing was inspired by one of my favourite bands, Operation Ivy. As you can see my table cloth didn't quite fit the table so I filled in the spaces with leaflets for all of the charities Operation Icing supports.

I made 14 cupcake flavours which included three gluten free options. The best sellers, were definitely the Raspberry Doughnut and Cookies & Cream flavours. I'll make loads more of those next year! 

Unsurprisingly the Speculoos Caramel Cookie flavour also sold super fast...

...as did Peanut Butter Oreo. I actually only came up with this combo on the Thursday evening before Veg Fest after fellow Brighton blogger Christina from paperbagblog tweeted that she was spreading peanut butter on Oreo's. Genius! You've heard that Oreo's are now vegan in the UK right? I'm SO excited about it. Newman O's would be better but these corporate O's will have to do until their friendlier alternative makes it across the pond!

The cupcakes were not only toped with an Oreo cookie but there's a whole Oreo inside too.

I love the new Matcha Green Tea cupcakes, and I'll be adding them to the website soon. As you can see I borrowed the style of icing on them from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. I'm assuming that Isa & Terry wont mind as this is all not-for-profit?!

The matcha glaze instead of a buttercream frosting made these stand apart from the other cupcakes and they really appealed to people who said they hated the amount of frosting on most cupcakes. The Sweet & Salty Maple Bacon was the cupcake that really divided opinions, the feedback I got from people was either really positive or "it was interesting" which we all know means weird/gross! I loved the flavour though and I'll definitely continue to offer it for the more adventurous cupcake connoisseur.

As I said last time I blogged, Veg Fest just sneaked into the Raystede donation month and I ended up raising £280. Added together with the other Operation Icing profits for the month the total donation for Feb-March was £351, easily the biggest donation so far!

As well as being excited about selling out of cupcakes and raising money for charity I was also super excited to meet everyone who came by to say hi, to buy cupcakes or to tell me that they enjoyed reading my blog. Thank you! It was super awesome to have support from the blogging community and I'll definitely be seeing you all again next year if not before. 

The only sad thing about working on the Saturday and taking off to Dublin on the Sunday (aside from the fact that I was so tired when packing that I forgot a tonne of stuff) was that I didn't get much of a chance to enjoy the fair and check out everyone else's stalls. Next year I'll be planning that part better!

If the idea of eating cupcakes and donating money to charity appeals to you then you can get involved with this little baketivist project by buying some cupcakes! They'll be back in WaiKikaMooKau Cafe on Kensington Gardens next Friday, the 29th, and you can always order boxes of cupcakes in 6's, 12's, or more, via my website for collection or delivery in the North Laine area.