Vegan Baking - Tips And Ideas
Vegan baking is easy and delicious when you know how. Vegan muffins, vegan cakes and vegan desserts are easy with these vegan cooking tips. And you do not need an egg replacer to make light and fluffy vegan cakes!
Cakes:In fact, I can knock out a great, light vegan cake in five minutes flat without measuring any ingredients (I wish I could stop this random habit of mine. I often go into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and then before I know it, I have made a cake instead - not good for the waistline).
I just pour a load of self raising flour into a bowl, add some vegetable oil, water, caster sugar, vanilla essence and whisk together.
This unprofessional photo on the left is one half of a vegan cake I made as above. Not the most attractive looking thing you've ever seen but you can see it has risen well and with correct measurements and a bit of decoration, the results would be much better (the yellow splodge on the cake slice is where I had just used a knife that had been used to cover my toast with soya spread).
The trick is to find your favourite vegan substitute ingredients and you are halfway there. You do not need any egg replacer to make a vegan cake!
Some vegan bakers do use egg replacers but it is just down to choice. I rarely bother.
For cakes - I have found the best leavening (rising) ingredients to be baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and vinegar. You can use either white vinegar or cider vinegar.
When you have all the ingredients mixed into a bowl ready for the cake tin - mix around 2-4 tablespoons of white vinegar or cider vinegar in a bowl with one or two teaspoons of baking soda. They will react and fizz up. Now pour this into your ingredients bowl and whisk in, but don't overwhisk because you want the fizzy bubbles to remain in the mix.
Butter in a non-vegan cake also helps to enhance the cakes flavour so you might like to try adding a drop of vanilla extract to the mix or the zest of a lemon or lime for a lovely tangy twang. You could also try adding some soya yoghurt to the cake batter mix (before adding the dry ingredients). This will make the cake texture a bit heavier with a slight fudgy taste to it. To make a moister cake, try adding vegetable oil instead of soya spread - or use a mixture of the two.
I find the vegan whipped cream you can buy in the squirty cans to have an odd taste. They also usually don't spray properly because the fat content is too low. Click on the above link for a great vegan cream recipe which is ideal for trifles or victoria sponges. Some vegan baking recipes just call for a great cream and I've yet to find a ready bought vegan whipped cream that is any good.
Cheesecakes:
Eggs really arn't needed to make a cheesecake (and I make a fantastic one even if I do say so myself). The main purpose of using eggs in a non-vegan cheesecake is to bind the ingredients together and this is easily done without eggs and is replaced with the use of tofu. I make cheesecakes using tofu (I originally used silken tofu but now use a firm tofu simply because when using silken, you need to add cornflour to make sure the cheesecake stands upright and not collapse - using a firm tofu means you don't need to add cornflour), soya cream, vanilla essence, lemon juice, sugar and vegan cream cheese. The silken tofu soaks up the cream flavours and the result is a gorgeous creamy cheesecake. I am always asked for the
recipe
when I make this cheesecake.
This is a vanilla cheesecake, but can be adapted to make a chocolate flavour by either adding cocoa powder to the filling or you can also melt dark vegan chocolate over a bowl of hot water and add this to the mixture.
Mousses:The easiest way to make a vegan mousse is to use silken tofu. Add the drained tofu to a bowl and add sugar and vegan cream If you want to make a vanilla mousse, add in some soya powder (I prefer soya powder as it thickens the mixture up a bit) or some vanilla extract.Add cocoa powder for a chocolate version or blend some fresh fruit for a fruity mousse. Remember to whisk, whisk and whisk again, and then allow to chill (preferably overnight) before serving. You are looking for a fairly thick consistency otherwise the end result will just look like custard.
Muffins:
Vegan muffins are just too easy to make and also do not need an egg replacer. I actually havn't tried making them with cider vinegar and bicarbonate of soda yet but I would imagine these ingredients would work the same way as they do with vegan cakes.
Of course, as soon as I do try it out, I will report my success or failure here but in the meantime
these muffin recipes
are fairly disaster proof.
Vegan baking is all about veganisation. Grab any non vegan recipe and use your favourite
vegan substitute
ingredients to create a vegan version.
This vegan desserts e book is also very popular.
Happy vegan baking!
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Then I pour in a little cider vinegar and sprinkle on some bicorbonate of soda and whisk again. This (almost) always gives me a lovely spongy cake that I can decorate or eat as it is.
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