We're finally in the age where there's an increasing number of options when it comes to vegan food products. Back in the day we used to have to forego cheesecake or take matters into our own hands if we decided to eschew animal products. Then Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese came out and everyone rejoiced because they could finally have cheesecake and New York style bagels that were easy to make and didn't suffer from flavor compromises. But then a huge Doh! moment occurred. It's chock full of trans fats! Toffutti answered the call with Better Than Cream Cheese Non-Hydrogenated. Other companies are now following suit with their own vegan cream cheeses such as Follow Your Heart Cream Cheese Alternative. Which of the lot is recommended for your cheesecakes this season? Read on to find out.

Pie crusts are simple but vulnerable to many different variables that can cause failure or lackluster results during baking. The crust is the frame of your pie so it's important that it comes out as perfect as possible. I recently had a Trader Joe's pie that had such a poor, mealy crust that it disracted from the rest of the pie.

When making pie crusts, there are several things you can do to ensure it comes out as perfect as possible such as using ice cold water, Vegan Butter or margarine in stick form instead of tub form due to it containing more saturated fat, etc. Another often overlooked crust trick is the use of a pie weight.

Strudel is one of those treats that everyone loves. If I met someone who was anti-strudel I'd back away if I were you. Strudel has origins in Austria and Hungary dating back to the late seventeenth century. Traditional Austrian strudel is not made with phyllo dough or puff pastry but with a thin dough with a high gluten content that gives it elasticity. Traditionally, strudel can be filled with cherries, apples, spinach, saurerkraut or cheese. This vegan Apple Strudel recipe features apples picked fresh from an apple orchard in Pennsylvania and is enhanced with rum, raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice.

Although not as smooth and creamy as Dark Velvet Ganache, this Easy Ganache recipe is still great when you need vegan ganache in a pinch. Ganache can be a very versatile base for a recipe. It can be adapted to anything from frostings to truffles to fillings. Just adjust the non-dairy milk in this recipe plus or minus up to 2 Tablespoons to get the thickness that suits your needs. For example: 2 more Tablespoons non-dairy milk will make this ganache solidify into a soft frosting-like consistency at room temperature. ½ cup of non-dairy milk yields ganache that is perfect for cakes. You can even customize it further with things like Grand Marnier, Chambord, espresso or mint extract.

In these trying times purchasing baking ingredients to sustain your sweet tooth/hobby can add up. Many of us have more time than funds these days so it can be fun to discover the art producing things we take for granted. This is the heart of what DIY culture is all about. It's fascinating to create, learn and save some dough in the process.

Lately I took that approach to vanilla extract and was able to create a vanilla extract that was comparable to high end extract for slightly more than half the cost.

To do this first you'll need to obtain a proper vessel. The little 5 oz. bottles that hot sauce comes in is perfect for home brewed vanilla extract. Transfer the hot sauce to a small pyrex container and thoroughly wash the glass bottle a couple times to wash away all the hot sauce remnants. 

Apple butter varies from apple sauce in that apple sauce is just puréed apples with some spice and sweetener optionally added. Apple butter has a bit of a cult following because it more accurately captures the essence of the apple. It consists of a spiced apple sauce that's cooked down for several hours so the sugars caramelize, preserving the mixture in the process. Cooking the mixture also produces more complex flavor compounds, activates naturally occurring pectin so it gels and reduces it so it's more concentrated. The result is rich, creamy apple heaven. Fall apple perfection captured in a jar. You can make a large batch from this recipe and can it for future use or spread it immediately on toast, pancakes or use for anything where you would use fruit preserves.

I've always recommended to have at least one thermometer in the oven at all times. Do you really want to trust that other shady built-in oven thermometer? Last I saw that dude he was blinking 12:00 like it was actually that time (maybe it was). The fact is, your built-in oven thermometer is usually off and it's a good idea to take steps to correct oven temperatures before you wake up and realize that you've grown into an adult at the same house accompanied by almost 1,053 slightly burned Friday night pizzas.

Don't know what to do with all those pumpkin seeds from pumpkin carving? Take those little pepitas and dress them up in little spiced sugar costumes with this Candied Spiced Pumpkin Seeds recipe. They'll love it and you will too because this vegan recipe features barley malt syrup, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom to help push the savory pumpkin seed flavors forward.

Around 150 years ago it became cost effective to mass mill grains into the shelf stable product we know of as flour. Since this time, a host of health related anomalies have been occurring in the United States. The beginning of the mass production of food is regarded as marking the beginning of the Standard American Diet, or more appropriately named, the SAD diet. These health issues are likely caused by products containing flour and sugars that, after they're quickly digested, turn into a flash flood of sugar that our bodies aren't capable of handling multiple times a day. To reduce having major health issues later in life, we'd like to remind you that highly processed foods should be enjoyed in moderation. When you're not overindulging in desserts, It's a good idea to eat natural food that is minimally processed and provides consistent energy without spiking your blood sugar. Luckily, this can be done while still eating amazing food. Enter Manna Bread.

New Englanders seem to get inordinately excited for Fall every year, and while they claim it’s the foliage and the seasonal Starbucks drinks, I’m pretty convinced it’s all the baking they’re suddenly inspired to do and consume.  Mass consumption of sugary, fattening, delicious baked goods isn’t an alien concept to me, even though I hail from San Francisco, the land of health food and hippies.  My heritage is largely (no pun intended) German, and if there’s any bit of culture my German-American relatives have retained, it’s their love for two things above all else: (1) beer; and (2) cakes.

When the weather starts to cool and gets a little drizzly (as Seattle is known to do) I start craving warm and hardy soups. Thick, earthy and when you get up from the table, you don’t even care that it’s already dark.

Most of the vegan barley soups I’ve found seem to be too brothy and not enough of a bold flavor for me. My family is newly vegan so we still need that “meaty” flavor. So what do I do when I need a bolder flavor? I booze it up. Yep. That’s the bam around my house. “Booze it up!” I know, what a wonderful role model I am! I also like to add kale. Mostly for color but also because it is super nutritious and I am always trying to toss it into my dishes. 

Bread Pudding is probably the most comfortable comfort food. What other type of food has a moist pudding-like texture paired with a soft cake-like feel? Take some barley malt syrup, cinnamon, nugmeg, ginger and cloves. Now add some pumpkin and bourbon to the mix and you have recipe to warm your soul. In one bite all your worries are forgotten for a few minutes. Preparing this vegan Pumpkin Bourbon Bread Pudding recipe is really easy, provided you already have pumpkin purée. For the base, you can use any bread that is light in color and neutral in flavor.

During the Fall there are few things better than pumpkin infused treats like pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins and pumpkin cookies. Probably the least understood part of making these treats is getting the pumpkin purée out of the pumpkin. There are lots of different ways to make pumpkin purée. Some methods use boiling pumpkin chunks in water, others use baking the pumpkin in the oven. Still other methods detail using the microwave. Each method has it's pros and cons. Read on to find out how to select the best pumpkin and recommended steps for making good quality pumpkin purée.

Sometimes I don't know what I like better: cookie dough or freshly baked cookies. Recently I picked up a 12 oz. tub of Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies from Emily's Desserts and found myself in the same conundrum. Emilys basically giving you no excuses for easy access to vegan eats. Don't feel like eating a ginormous store-bought cookie? Fine. Don't feel like going through the rigamarole of baking a batch of smaller cookies? Alright. With Emily's Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough you no longer have any more excuses. Read on as we put them through their cookie paces.

I love baking with vegan margarines like Earth Balance because they taste almost as good as butter and contain no hydrogenated oils. Hydrogenated oils are oils where hydrogen is forced into oil at high pressure. This chemically changes the unsaturated fatty acids into saturated ones. The benefit of this is that the oil is solid at room temperature and has an extended shelf life. The drawback of this is that trans fats are created during this process. In the 1980's food scientists began to notice adverse health affects associated with trans fat intake. This finding has led to a disaster in the food industry as food processors scramble to re-engineer their food to forgo hydrogenated oils but allow them to retain their flavor, shelf life, consistency and profit margins.