Vegan Baking

[Amanda]

Yep, your resident newbie vegan again. My work is having a Chili cook-off and bake-off. I was thinking about entering the baking competition with a vegan something. Any suggestions? I think there's one other vegetarian here, but that's it. Wouldn't it be awesome if I won and then I told everyone they were vegan _____!?!? I'm a fairly good baker, but I've never baked without dairy. So, I need some help/suggestions. I'm open to cookies, brownies, cupcakes, whatever. Help! :)

[Barbara]

The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau is great. I heard her speak in Tampa this month. She is awesome!

[d4]

Most of my baking is from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World: 75 Dairy-Free Recipes for Cupcakes that Rule & Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. The former has a yummy pumpkin chocolate chip cupcake recipe with cinnamon icing that is really simple. The latter has a yummy recipe for "Banana Everything" cookies (banana, oatmeal, chocolate chip, walnuts) and these apple peanut pretzel drops that are my bf's current favorite. The banana everything cookies were his favorite for like a year.

I could e-mail you a couple of recipes if you'd like.

[Amanda]

Oh! Those cupcakes sound awesome! Can you send me that one and some cookie recipes? I'm also thinking some spring recipes. Not sure what that means though...

[Amanda]

I NEED VCTOTW! I've been reading reviews and I'm going to have to purchase it. In the meantime, can I also have the recipe for the Chocolate Stout Cupcakes? I found a variation online, but I'm wondering what the cupcake bible says.

[d4]

Check your GoodReads inbox. (It'll be in the drop down menu under your name on the very top right hand corner.)

[Jessi]

Just now saw this post. What did you decide to make? Did the competition already happen? The company I work for is a very small family-owned business, so we never do fun stuff like this! My co-workers are a fan of my baking though. : )

[Amanda]

Jessi wrote: "Just now saw this post. What did you decide to make? Did the competition already happen? The company I work for is a very small family-owned business, so we never do fun stuff like this! My co-work..."

I'm a perfectionist so I made about 3 things throughout the week to "test" on my co-workers and then entered something completely different into the competition. First, I made the Chocolate Stout cupcakes. You needed to eat them with a fork - they didn't stick together. Co-workers were not impressed. Then I found a cupcake recipe that used coconut oil in it, which got amazing reviews so I figured I couldn't screw that one up! The cupcakes turned out great. Frosting, not so much. So, I decided to just veganize a brownie recipe and it turned out great. I didn't win. Red Velvet cake did. But, when I told my co-workers that the brownies were vegan, they were surprised.

Guess I'll just have to keep practicing! :)

[d4]

I have frosting issues, too. Tastes great (I mean, it's sugar, so of course it does), but I can never get it to the consistency I want. I'm going to try cream cheese frosting using Toffutti "Better Than Cream Cheese" one of these days. I made a yummy icing with coconut oil once... but it's crazy expensive... or I'm just crazy broke.

[Rebecca]

Ofmatt (dara) wrote: "I have frosting issues, too. Tastes great (I mean, it's sugar, so of course it does), but I can never get it to the consistency I want. I'm going to try cream cheese frosting using Toffutti "Better..."

I just made Toffutti cream cheese icing for a vegan version of red velvet whoopie pies the other day! It was A+

[d4]

Ah, red velvet... I have to give making those a second try. The first recipe I tried was from Babycakes... spelt flour... ugh. (It's not even gluten-free apparently so I don't understand why they used it.) It didn't help that I couldn't find the ingredients to make their icing. They used soy powder. Short of ordering that online, that's not happening. I am annoyed by recipes that call for ingredients I'll never use again.

Anyway, enough of my complaining! Red velvet whoopie pies sound yummy. I could see them in cute little heart shapes.

[Rebecca]

The recipe I used was just a basic one from Food Network (http://tinyurl.com/yhgqr2g) and then I swapped for vegan ingredients like egg replacer and melted vegan chocolate chips and stuff. I do the same thing, I avooooid the recipes with expensive random things I won't use!

It worked really well with all the substitutes and they lasted a total of two days in the house, haha. Next time I will SO cut them into little hearts-- I always accidentally make them too big and they come out the size of freaking hamburgers or something idk idk. Not really complaining about it though.

[Amanda]

My icing tasted like crap, but looked good. Or it looked terrible and tasted good. I think you're onto something with the cream cheese though!

So, egg replacer. Haven't tried it, but I saw it. Worth it?

[Rebecca]

I think so! I got the Bob's Red Mill kind. I've used it in several things now and it seems to work great. I used to use tapioca flour but I think I like this better because you can use it in non-baking stuff and the bag seems to last forever.

[Amanda]

Where did you get it? I saw an egg replacer at Whole Foods the other night, but didn't even look at it. I'll take a look next time. :)

[Rebecca]

I got it at Whole Foods. :D It was only a few bucks.

[Amanda]

Sweet. I'll have to try it soon. Especially since St. Patty's Day is next week. There must be St. Patty's cupcakes! :)