Don't judge a book by it's cover

For a BBQ a couple of weeks ago I decided to make some sweet things to take. I made lychee cupcakes from VCTOTW and strawberries in rose jelly from veggie chic.

I started making the cupcakes and then realised that quite a few people in blog land had tried them and thought they were not so good. This is one of the guest recipes so I should have known better. One person recommended adding more lychee syrup and thankfully I listened to her.

The jelly recipe asked for vegetarian jelly so I used agar agar. I've used agar agar before to make jelly with no problems and it smelled and looked great (the pic doesn't quite capture it).

Unfortunately, the cupcakes however looked pretty horrible, there were flaxseed lumps all throughout it and the icing was pretty transparent and really running (see the pic below). However they thankfully tasted fine, there were kids at the BBQ and they kept coming back for more. I always think if I managed to get both adults and kids to agree I've done ok since most kids are so fussy. If you do plan on making them I strongly recommend that you triple the amount of lychee syrup and replace the flaxseed with another egg replacer.

The jelly on the other hand was the worst ever. It was tasteless and the texture was not right, it was like rubber. I'm not sure if it was because I didn't cook it long enough or if it is because vegetarian jelly is different or if the recipe just sucked. I stupidly didn't try it before the BBQ and so I had to try to convince people not to eat it and they wouldn't listen and I'm never felt more embarrassed ever, one of the kids spat it out and the rest of the adults politely ate it and pretended to like it. I'm glad that the majority of the people of the party didn't know I was vegan so they didn't have this horrible association with tasteless rubber vegan food.