Vegan Baking

As I progress in my vegan baking adventures I strive for quality ingredients that give me as much control as possible over the flavors and textures I'm trying to convey. I also love breaking foods down to their most basic components and building them back up again, learning and getting unnecessarily excited along the way. For some people it's TV. For me it's this sort of food hacking. 

I recently decided that I wanted to create a high quality vegan butter because I began to tire of the store bought yellow goop that I was so steadily relying on. What if I don't want all that diacetyl flavoring, beta carotene coloring, palm oil and who knows what else? It reminded me of one of my favorite Saturday Night Live skits from the 80's: Happy Fun Ball. "Don't taunt Happy Fun Ball". My vegan butter experimentation ended up being more successful than I imagined. What if I made my own shortening?

One of the reason marzipan goes back ages is because it's extremely versatile. It can be used for anything from  cake decorations, fillings in cookies and pastries or in this case, a center in this vegan bonbon recipe. A touch of almond extract brings out some extra flavor so it can compete on the same level as the chocolate. This recipe uses a chocolate mold. If you don't have one, place the marzipan balls in the freezer for an hour or so, roll them in melted chocolate, then place them on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet before returning them to the freezer for about another hour.

This No Knead Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread is now my go-to vegan bread recipe because it's simple to make and is a great example of how wet doughs can create wonderfully light and spongy breads. The higher water content allows the gliadin and glutenin in the flour to align into tight gluten bonds over time so you can forget about all the kneading drama. The result is a fluffy, chewy loaf that's perfect for sandwiches. Feel free to use this bread as a starting point and substitute a ½ cup of the flour for things like wheat germ, wheat bran or oat bran. It's important to note that due to the wetness of this dough it's only suitable for baking in a loaf pan.

Peaches and pears make a wonderfully warm flavor combination in this Peach Pear Cobbler recipe. Stone fruit enhancing ingredients like lemon zest, ginger and nutmeg are prominently featured in this vegan cobbler. It's like getting a group hug from a peach and a pear.

These chewy Pecan Caramel Chews are reminiscent of those little caramels you used to get from trick or treating when you were little- except they're packed with pecans and dipped in chocolate. Be sure to use a candy thermometer with this vegan caramel recipe for best results. If you like your caramel extra soft or extra hard, adjust the caramelization temperature 10F lower or 10F higher respectively.

Pumpkin purée gives this Pumpkin Gingerbread Cookie recipe extra Halloween street cred. These vegan cookies also pack a combination of barley malt syrup and molasses enhanced with ginger, nutmeg, cloves and just the right amount of vanilla extract for a scary good flavor.

This Pumpkin Spice Cake recipe takes advantage of barley malt syrup's ability to really drive pumpkin flavors. This vegan cake is then enhanced with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and a touch of lemon juice, making it perfect for special occasions during the fall season.

 

This Pumpkin Spice Muffin recipe has a wonderful warm, buttery flavor that is enhanced by barley malt syrup, lemon juice, cinnamon, ginger and a touch of cloves. Pecans add flavor complexity and a delightful crunch. These vegan muffins are equally good with baked sweet potato purée substituted for the pumpkin as well.

This Sticky Cinnamon Roll recipe features brown sugar, maple syrup and just the right amount of cinnamon, making them moist and chewy. And if that's not enough, these vegan cinnamon rolls are topped with walnuts, raisins then drizzled with icing to make them an irresistible treat any time of day.

These vegan Sugar Cookies are perfect for the holidays or any time you feel like treating yourself. This recipe is on the shortbread side of things so they're nice and crispy. They can be rolled and cut with cookie cutters or pressed out of a cookie press. Dust them with coarse sugar, cinnamon, cardamom or all three if you're feeling frisky.

The secret to making great focaccia involves using an herbed olive oil to lend an array of herb flavors, allowing the dough to ferment in a refrigerated state for at least 12 hours which allows complex bread flavors to develop and baking a wet dough at a very high temperature which ensures a soft, spongy texture and a crispy crust. Fresh herbs are paramount to infusing the right intensity of flavors in this focaccia recipe. Feel free to use any combination of fresh basil, thyme, rosemary, oregano, sage, savory or marjoram. A long, refrigerated fermentation allows naturally occurring enzymes within the flour to break out more sugars from the starches for the yeast to ferment. These extra sugars allow the yeast to built more flavor, sweeten the focaccia and caramelize under heat which contributes a multitude of enhanced flavors.

How in Samhain do you take eggs and butter out of baked goods and still make them taste good?  The study of that is why this website was created.  The internet already contains a ton of information regarding regular baking ingredients so I'm not going to touch on those.  There are, however, various ingredients that have helped me in my baking. Here are some that work for me.

Commercial vegan white chocolate is relatively difficult to find but is an extremely versatile ingredient to have in your kitchen. Luckily, white chocolate's main ingredient, cocoa butter, is easy to find at affordable prices on the internet if you can't find it at your local health food store. A touch of soy milk powder and vanilla extract enhances depth of flavor in this chocolate.

Earlier attempts at making this chocolate have resulted in excessively grainy bars due to the absence of industrial chocolate making equipment. A few extra steps will ensure this bar is as smooth as possible. Grinding your soy milk powder in a rotary coffee grinder will make the powder granules as small as possible and cause them to not be as noticeable on the palate. Tempering the chocolate to ensure proper fat crystal formation is the other crucial step to ensuring a smooth, high quality bar. Once you've mastered these steps you can add flavorings like cardamom, matcha, cinnamon and ginger powder for a truly outstanding vegan white 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.