TVA does the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale!

On Saturday, June 20, I and co-RCers/podcasters John and Liam hosted our very own "chapter" of the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale. We were a little worried that no one would come and we'd be FORCED to eat all the delicious donated goodies - Toronto was being plagued by big rains that day and we weren't sure that anyone would have the wherewithal to get outside in that mess. However, by 11:55 am (the sale ran from noon-2 pm), there was already a lineup of eager vegan baking aficionados ready to dig in.

There were all kinds of amazing-looking goodies of which I personally only got to try a couple because I didn't want to deprive the brave souls who came out into the weather to support the event. I will say that the truffles Sara made (check out her new vegan blog here) were absolutely phenomenal.

There were also lemon bars, banana bread (gluten-free and "regular"), ginger cookies, three different kinds of cupcake, raw cheezecakes from Living Sweets, cake, caramel pecan bars, and three kinds of truffles (two which were chocolaty, one of which was nut-free; and the other which was savoury - coated in a light dusting of cumin for a totally unique flavour).

By the time we got some pictures taken of this impressive spread, much of it had already been hidden away in happy vegans' bellies! We raised a couple hundred dollars for TVA with this event, but raising money wasn't really our main goal. Rather, what we really wanted to do was show people how kick-ass vegan baking can be (and to get potential participants excited for the upcoming Totally Fabulous Vegan Bake-Off, which will be held in early October.)

I think we had some success with getting people to think about the deliciousness of vegan fare, for several Baldwin Village business owners came out to support us and were really pleased at the tastiness of everything and wanted to know how to bake without eggs and dairy - which, of course, we were happy to explain. :)

Besides showing the world how amazing vegan baking can be, we also hosted this event to help foster community, for we feel that there aren't enough social opportunities for vegetarians and vegans to meet and mingle. The big event of the year is, of course, the annual vegetarian food fair TVA puts on, but we'd like to increase everyone's opportunities for getting together and talking tofurkey. So check the TVA website events listing and listen to the Toronto Vegetarian Podcast for information on other upcoming events!

Speaking of fostering community, we got to meet some great vegan peeps at this event. We met Sara and Peter (Sara being the unstoppable truffle-maker mentioned above and all-around enjoyer of vegan goodies).

We also got to meet Hellenic and Deepal, who have been vegan for 4 months now and were really excited to discover just how amazing life post-dairy and eggs can be. They bought so many treats, we had to package them up in an empty cake box for them! Hopefully they didn't eat them too quickly and give themselves belly aches.

All photos in this post were taken by Sara Rodrigues and Angela del Buono, except for the terribly too dark photo of Sara and Peter, which was taken by me, Colleen of the TVP, on Sara's camera.