Here's a Tip!
 When gliadin and glutenin proteins join together with the aid of moisture they form gluten. The more gluten in your flour, the more water required to hydrate these proteins into gluten. This is why bread flour requires more water than cake flour.
|
|
|
Submit Your Recipes
We thrive off user contributed recipes, articles and collaboration. Want to see more recipes here? Help out the vegan baking community by Submitting your own!
Want to Write for us?
We're looking for some passionate writing volunteers to take on our favorite vegan baking subjects such as news, articles, how to's, product reviews, book reviews and just about anything else that's vegan baking related. We can even link back to the same entry on your blog if you have one. Interested? Inquire within.
Send Us Something
Want us to showcase or review your book, latest treat from your food company or other related product? Send it to us.
Links We Like
Cooking and Baking Resources
Vegan Baking Related Companies
Everything Else
Link to us!
Submit Vegan Baking News
Have vegan baking news you'd like us to know about? Let us know!
Support Us
This site is run completely by volunteers. If you like what we do please consider making a donation.
|
Vegan Baking Tips
Have vegan baking tips we should know about? Let us know and we'll share them with the world!
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
When gliadin and glutenin proteins join together with the aid of moisture they form gluten. The more gluten in your flour, the more water required to hydrate these proteins into gluten. This is why bread flour requires more water than cake flour.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
Knead your yeast-leavened bread dough until it springs back when poked with a finger. Usually this is after 12 to 15 minutes of kneading. Don't worry, it's not possible to overwork the gluten by hand-kneading.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
Embarking on a cookie baking marathon? Let your baking sheets cool down before you put the next batch of cookie dough on them so they don't spread out too early and end up burning. When I ran my cookie company, I would refer to unwanted cookie spread as cookies 'farting out'.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
If you're cooking or baking with nuts and they're going to be under heat for less than 15 minutes in the final recipe, toast them before adding them to the recipe for maximum flavor. To do this, heat your oven to 350F (177C) place your nuts on a baking sheet and bake them for 10 to 15 minutes or until they're golden.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
Mixing a Tablespoon or two of tapioca or arrowroot flour into your fruit filling will cause excess juices to gel, reducing runniness while improving the mouthfeel of your pie or cobbler.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
To get the maximum juice from your lemons and oranges before juicing them by hand, first roll them back and forth on the counter while applying slight pressure with your hand. This will loosen up the fruit and allow the juices to flow out of them more easily.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
To blanch almonds, cover them with boiling water and let them sit for 2 minutes. Then drain, rinse them in cold water and remove the skins by pinching them with your thumb and forefinger. Lastly, dry them off with a paper towel.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
Does your chocolate have a white powder on it? Put the anthrax medication away and rest easy. The white chalky substance on your chocolate is called 'bloom' and it's just the cocoa butter rising out of the chocolate. It will go away completely and melt back into the choclate as soon as it's re-melted and flavor and texture won't be affected.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
Fats that contain more saturated fats such as shortening and coconut oil produce flakier pie crusts. If you're still after buttery flavor, use half stick-margarine and half shortening or coconut oil in your crust.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
Doing lots of chocolate or fondant work with a double boiler? Don't run out of steam! Place a metal jar lid in the water. When the water gets too low it will rattle, telling you to fill 'er back up!
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
Allow your pots, pans, baking sheets and baking dishes to cool down until they're warm before washing or soaking them in cold water to prevent warping or shattering them. Shattered cookware = shattered dreams.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
Yeast leavened dough should not dry out during rising. To prevent this either cover it with a damp towel or coat it in oil and cover with a plastic bag. In extremely hot kitchens, the oil and plastic bag method is the most effective. Just don't forget to remove it before you put it in the oven!
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
Want to ripen fruits or vegetables as soon as possible? Place them in a paper bag with a ripe banana. Fruits, especially bananas, produce gasses when ripe that encourage other foods in their vicinity to ripen as well.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
For optimum shelf life, store popcorn kernels in an air tight container in the freezer. Stored this way, it should keep for years and reduce the number of unpopped kernels.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
When baking cookies on a cookie sheet, avoid darkened cookie sheets because they will actually absorb more heat, possibly resulting in burned cookies. This holds true for other cookware as well.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
Want to make your brownies, chocolate cake or other chocolate treat pop with more chocolate complexity and depth of flavor? Add about 1 teaspoon of instant espresso powder to the batter.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
Want to make your brittle a little more crispy and easier to bite into? Mix about 1 teaspoon of baking soda into the hot brittle just before it's poured onto the flat surface. The baking soda will make tiny little air bubbles in the brittle and cause it to get slightly puffed up, making for a lighter and crispier brittle.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
Yeast is a very tempermental beast. When baking breads with active dry yeast, allow it to activate in warm water only, then add it to the rest of your ingredients. Yeast is very sensitive and may not activate fully if subjected to things like sugars, salts and acids as it 'wakes up'.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
Unfortunately, if you cook and bake a lot you will eventually have to pay the 'kitchen tax' and sustain a cut. Make sure you have bandages on hand so when this happens you can deal with it and carry on with your baking. Running to the store to get bandages in the middle of baking something can be just a tad inconvenient. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
Only add your pie filling to your pie crust right before the pie goes into the oven. This will ensure the crust doesn't absorb the filling moisture and become soggy. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
One of the many tricks to mastering pie crusts is keeping your ingredients cool so the fat doesn't melt before the crust hits the oven. When the fat melts, the crust turns out tough and mealy instead of light and flaky. Use ice water (without the cubes) and keep your flour and bowls in the refrigerator beforehand to keep things as cool as possible. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
Lightly dusting your cake's serving platter with powdered sugar will allow the slices to easily come away when the cake is served. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
Frost your cake on it's serving platter with some strips of wax paper under the perimeter of the cake. When you're done frosting, quickly pull away the wax paper strips and your serving platter will look nice and clean. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
It's important to only frost your cake after it's cooled to room temperature. This allows moisture from the cake to escape and keeps your frosting from heating up and sliding off. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
After removing your cake from the oven, allow it to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before turning it over onto a cooling rack. This will keep the cake from falling apart during "the flip". |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
To check your cake to see if it's done baking, poke the center with a toothpick, small clean knife or skewer. If it comes out clean, your cake is ready. If it cake sticks, put the cake back in the oven for another 5 minutes before checking again. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
Yeast should be stored in the refrigerator to prevent spoiling. Stored in this manner, yeast will keep for up to six months. To test your yeast to see if it's still good, combine 1 teaspoon sugar and 2 teaspoons yeast with ¼ cup warm water. If the mixture starts bubbling it's still good. If it doesn't it should be discarded. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
When you bake with baking powder and baking soda, chemical reactions start to take place as soon as they go into your batter. Your item must be put in the oven immediately so the proper chemical reactions happen under heat. Preheat your oven when you start your recipe so it can go into the oven as soon as possible. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
Do your spices date back to the Clinton Administration? If they're older than one year, they're not going to be fresh enough to do their job and your finished product will suffer. Discard them and start with a new collection. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
If your baking powder is too old, it won't do it's job and your recipes won't turn out. Buy your baking powder in small quantities. Write the date on the container and discard it after six months. It's also important to keep your baking powder away from water for maximum shelf life. To check baking powder for freshness, add 1 teaspoon baking powder to 1/3 cup hot water. If it bubbles vigorously, it's still good. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
There's nothing worse than opening your oven to reveal a burned recipe after all that work. Check your baked item for doneness at the minimum baking time to prevent this. Usually this is five minutes less than the total baking time specified in the recipe. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
It's a good idea to play it safe and get a fire extinguisher for your kitchen. Keep it an an easily accessible area and check it's pressure gauge once a year. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
If you're ever unfortunate enough to experience a grease fire, remember to throw salt on it. Never use water to put out a grease fire. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
Is your pot bottom burned? Fill it with two inches of water, add 1 Tablespoon of baking soda and bring it to a boil. Boil for five minutes with the lid on then remove from heat and let it sit for about 30 minutes before scrubbing. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
Keep a pen and paper handy so you can write down what you need if you're getting low. You may also want to write down a trick you just learned so you don't forget it in the future. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
When zesting lemons for the best possible flavor in your recipe, be sure to start with organic lemons and get the outermost part of the peel because it contains the most essential oils. The white part of the peel is to be avoided because it contains less oils and more bitter flavors. If you're zest is for decorative purposes it's ok to get the white part because thicker zest curls are more important for the overall look of the recipe. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
Rolling pins come in two distinct types: A Rod which is a one-piece cylindrical piece of wood that's tapered on the ends. Rods are popular in French and East Asian kitchens. Rods have more maneuverability but less leverage for flattening dough. A Roller is a cylindrical piece of wood that is the same thickness throughout it's length. It has handles on each side that go through the length of the cylindrical piece of wood. Rollers are popular in western kitchens and they offer slightly more leverage for flattening dough but less control. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
Looking for maximum chocolate flavor in your recipe? So are we. In order to best achieve this, use both cocoa powder and baking chocolate if possible because their flavor characteristics combine, resulting in a chocolate explosion. Keep in mind that if you're retrofitting a recipe to have semisweet baking chocolate supplant some of the cocoa powder you should reduce your fat and sugar slightly to compensate. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
|
Sometimes when you add fruit pieces to cake batter, the fruit sinks to the bottom during baking. To keep this from happening coat your fruit pieces in flour before adding them to the batter. |
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
Making a yeast leavened bread and getting tired of waiting for it to rise multiple times? By now you could have probably planted grain and watched it grow. Don't even think about cutting corners with yeasted bread recipes. As with most things in life, good breads come to those who wait.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
Are your bananas getting brown? It's ok, most kitchens have at least a couple browning bananas kicking it somewhere. Don't throw them away! Place them in an air tight plastic bag and store them in the fridge for up to one year. They can later be thawed out in the microwave and be used for banana breads, muffins, cookies and pancakes.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
Dying of that summer heat but still can't keep yourself from baking up a storm? Keep a cool head and switch on your kitchen fan. It'll help suck out the heat that your oven is radiating into the kitchen and keep things bearable.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
Invest in a set of good quality kitchen shears to make your life easier. Kitchen shears are beefy scissors designed to cut through things like aseptic packages, thick plastic food bags, vegan sausage casings and even unbaked pie crust. Another benefit is the peace of mind of not worrying about how much rubber cement is caked on your normal scissors.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
Use Binder Clips to securely close opened plastic bags of things like nuts, corn chips and chocolate chips. They're way easier to work with than rubber bands and they last forever.
|
|
Vegan Baking Tips
|
When baking lots of goodies and doing lots of tasting don't forget to make brushing your teeth the last part of the cleanup process. Sugar can wreak havok on your pearly whites after the sugars get eaten by natural bacteria living in your mouth. This bacteria excretes acids that dissolve your teeth. So brush up!
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >>
|
|
Page 1 of 2 |
|
What's Happening
Yesterday
|
|
Renoodle uploaded a new avatar. |
04:19 PM |
2 days ago
4 days ago
Top Rated Recipes
|
|
 |
|
5.0 (3) |
|
|
|
|
|
5.0 (2) |
|
|
|
|
|
5.0 (2) |
|
|
|
|
|
5.0 (2) |
|
|
|
|
|
5.0 (2) |
|
Most Popular Recipes
|
|
|
|
0.0 (0) |
|
|
|
|
|
0.0 (0) |
|
|
|
|
|
5.0 (2) |
|
|
|
|
|
5.0 (1) |
|
|
|
|
|
0.0 (0) |
|
Most Popular Vegan Bakeries
|
|
5.0 (1) |
|
|
|
5.0 (1) |
|
|
|
5.0 (1) |
|
|
|
4.0 (1) |
|
|
|
0.0 (0) |
|
Spotlight On...
 The 'buck' in buckwheat is named after it's triangular seeds which are high in protein. It's not actually wheat or even a grass.
|
|
Read more... |
Try This
 This recipe was created because I wanted a healthy, hearty muffin that provided good energy for a first meal of the day. These muffins contain less sugar, more protein, complex carbs and fiber than most other muffins. It's also easy to make and provides about one week of breakfasts. Perfect topped with almond butter.
|
|
Read more... |
Here's an Article...
 By now you may have decided to try this whole vegan baking thing and unlike most other hobbies, noticed how satisfying it is to voraciously consume the results when it works out. If you haven't been consuming the fruits of your labor in secret, perhaps the boss is a little farther away from laying you off in these hard times due to the ongoing appearances of your apple struedel at the office. In conclusion of our series, we give you Part 3 of Building Your Vegan Kitchen where we divulge the useful tools that make vegan baking more convenient, cost effective and fun.
|
|
Read more... |
Product Reviews
 I've been wanting to get into the more presentation related aspects of baking lately so I tried out some Nature's Flavors All-Natural Food Coloring available at NaturesFlavors.com. As of this writing they arrived with the Natures Flavors label but on the website they're listed as Seelect. Also at the time of this writing these food colorings are also available at VeganEssentials.com. |
|
Read more... |
|
