Serving a tasty vegan dessert can be challenging, but may be made a whole lot easier by substituting various, quality vegan ingredients for the dairy products usually associated with these rich culinary creations! Best of all, vegan desserts can be quick to make, super delicious, and nutritious. You’ll surprise your family and friends by serving your own, homemade, delectable confections, and no one will ever know they are vegan… unless you tell them.

This Chocolate Orange Bomb bonbon recipe packs a seductive orange one two punch: They involve candied orange peel pureed with a kiss of Grand Marnier, mixed together with chocolate, then enrobed in a chocolate shell. This is a great vegan bonbon to have on hand when assembling your own box of chocolates for a special occasion.

Sometimes when working with things like chocolate, custards and fondant it's important to have slow, even, consistent heating. This ensures that your ingredients don't become too hot too fast or too much, which can cause them to break down. Other times you might want to work with something like melted chocolate for an extended period of time and not worry about constantly adjusting the heat to ensure that it's evenly melted. This is where a double boiler comes to the rescue. It's like cruise control for your heat!

A double boiler is a specific piece of cookware consisting of two fitted pots. The bottom pot is filled with 1 to 3 inches of water and the top pot fits above it and holds the ingredient that you're heating.

Marzipan is almond meal that's been added to caramelized sugar which makes it similar to frosting in consistency. It's origins come from present day Iran or Spain according to theory but it's true origins, as well as where the term 'marzipan' originated from are shrouded in mystery. It's extremely versatile, making a fantastic filling for cookies and pastries, a center for chocolates or rolled into stollen. It can be colored, flavored and formed into candies or used in cake decorating. You can even use other nuts besides almonds like macadamia nuts, cashews or brazil nuts. Marzipan can also be mixed with fruit and served in squares. In the vegan recipe below I didn't remove the skins of the almonds so it came out a light brown.

Silicone baking products are starting to infiltrate the kitchen at an astonishing pace. I remember the good old days when we had to walk in the snow for 13 miles, uphill in each direction to find paper to make paper mâché food molds that would catch fire in the oven. It would bind to our food and we'd go "oh no, there's paper in my food". That's the way it was and we liked it. Now we have a variety of silicone cookware options from spatulas to baking sheet liners to... chocolate molds.

Silikomart has introduced silicone chocolate molds to make light work of your chocolate truffle making endeavors. Read on to see how well they fared.

Hazelnuts, also known as filberts, are toasted to give this Chocolate Hazelnut Bark recipe a great crunch. Frangelico, a hazelnut liqueur, ups the ante with the hazelnuts for a deep, rich flavor. This vegan brittle is further enhanced with orange zest and then smothered in chocolate.

The more I use yeast instead of baking powder for sweetbreads the more I notice that yeasted breads produce far better flavor results. How did we get into this bad habit of 'chemically' leavening our sweet breads with baking powder and baking soda? One word: convenience. Yeasted breads take about 3 times longer to make because we have to wait for the yeast to do it's thing. Yeast leavened breads are usually considerably more flavorful than chemically leavened breads because as the yeast ferments and spits out C02 that rises the bread, it also produces a multitude of complex flavor compounds. This is not the case with chemically leavened breads where few flavor byproducts are produced during the chemical reaction between acid and alkalne that produces the C02. This Yeasted Banana Bread is now my go-to vegan banana bread recipe.

Legend has it that egg nog originated in England where it consisted of a mix of milk, eggs and either brandy, Madeira or sherry. It wasn't until it was brought over the the United States that it started to get mixed with bourbon, a reaction to other liquor's scarcity during the American Revolutionary War. This vegan Cashew Egg Nog recipe is super easy to make and doesn't actually contain eggs. It's just a great 'nog to put a splash of bourbon or rum into. It's even good on it's own. Using the arrowroot powder or tapioca flour is important to achieve the creamy texture and emulsify the fats with the rest of the liquids. Perfect for a lazy evening next to a crackling fire space heater.

I used to get so grossed out at the mere thought of accidentally eating orange peel while eating an orange. Then I had candied orange peels and appreciated their candy form and created this recipe. Candied orange peels are a very versatile delicacy. Use them in Panettone, Stollen, Hot Cross Buns, pair them with almonds and cover them with chocolate or mince them and use them for topping on ice cream. Feel free to use other citrus peels in place, or in addition to orange such as lemon or lime. Just be sure to use organic peels because non-organic ones often have high concentrations of pesticide residues.

This vegan Apple Walnut Stuffing recipe is great inside Stuffed Seitan or along side some Cranberry Sauce during holiday feasts. Apples give it a light flavor enhancing sweetness which is a great accompaniment to the textures of water chestnuts and walnuts.

Gone Pie Vegan Bakery was kind enough to submit this Gluten-Free Pie Crust.

This year we went with a new pie crust for our gluten-free holiday pies. It is adapted from the wheat-free crust we have been making for years. I think it actually held together better and was an all around better crust than its inspiration. It is not a crust without issues. Using both tree nuts and gluten-free oats, it is not for everyone!

Here is the recipe. It makes enough crust for one 10 inch tart crust or three 7 inch crusts.

This Parsnip Cake recipe is carrot cake's long lost brother, featuring parsnips which are slightly spicy and astringent. Parsnips are teamed up with pineapple, golden raisins, non-diary yogurt and a touch of cardamom to make a vegan cake that's lighter and spicier than carrot cake but every bit as tasty. Like carrot cake, Parsnip Cake should be liberally frosted with Easy Cream Cheese Frosting or a variant thereof for best results.

Whip cream is frosting's long lost cousin. This is a good thing because it's enabled us to top everything from pies to ice cream to cake with it's creamy goodness. Sensing a vacuum in the vegan whip cream space since Hip Whip disappeared from the market (RIP Now and Zen), Soyatoo has stepped up to the plate with Rice Whip and Soy Whip. These vegan whipped creams give you no excuses to leave any tastebuds behind in your quest for the ultimate desserts.

I tested this whip on some Pumpkin Cheesecake to see how it stacked up. Is it worth it's compressed nitrous oxide? Read on to find out.

Pumpkin Cheesecake is one of my favorite desserts during the holidays. This recipe variation pairs pumpkin with Easy Caramel Sauce for a great way to end a feast. It also features barley malt syrup, lemon juice, cinnamon and ginger powder to help marry bold pumpkin flavor with vegan creaminess. I recommend opting for non-hydrogenated vegan cream cheese so you can avoid trans fats. This vegan cheesecake also goes great with a dollop of Vanilla Ice Cream.

Use this Easy Caramel Sauce recipe to bring another dimension to vegan cheesecakes, ice creams, pies, brownies or pretty much anything. Caramel is one of those rare taste miracles that's in the same realm of chocolate sauce and maple syrup; it would probably make cardboard taste delectable. It's liquid gold. This is an easy to make sauce that utilizes coconut cream for rich flavor. Coconut contains flavor compounds called lactones which are among the same compounds that give dairy products like cream their signature flavors. Want to turn up the flavor level to eleven? Replace the vanilla extract with 1 Tablespoon bourbon, rum or brandy.