Archive for the ‘Vegan’ Category
Baked goods can be some of the most difficult foods to vegan-ize because eggs, butter and milk usually play a big role in cookies and cakes. Cookbooks like Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar have tackled the task of creating excellent vegan baked goods in two popular categories. Now, the same author has taken on pies in Vegan Pie in the Sky: 75 Out-of-This-World Recipes for Pies, Tarts, Cobblers, and More and put together a book that covers all of your pie needs, from nuts to fruit to chocolate, without any dairy or eggs needed.
The cookbook starts out with an introduction on how to make pie and how to make a great pie crust. Vegetable shortening is a vegan product, so that is the primary fat used in these crust recipes. There are also a couple of recipes for olive oil-based crusts and a gluten free almond-based crust, all of which are very versatile. Once you have the crusts, the book gets into the fillings. It includes fruit pies, cream pies and chocolate pies. There is also a section dedicated to harvest pies, which includes favorite fall ingredients such as pumpkin and pears to ensure that the most popular pie-baking season of the year is well-covered. There are plenty of pictures of the pie making process and the finished pies to inspire you and help you along.
The book is fun to read and it’s clear that the author really enjoys her work. As you read through the adorably-named recipes and friendly notes, you’ll find that the enthusiasm is catching. It makes you want to bake the recipes, whether you’re vegan or not. Non-vegans should note that these pie fillings can easily be adapted to work with a store bought crust (of course, there are also vegan store-bought crusts out there) if you are not vegan and don’t mind doing a little crossover with some of the recipes. You may need some special ingredients for some of the recipes – such as agar agar, for some of the cream pie fillings – but most of the recipes don’t have any special requirements and you’ll be able to try them out right away and bring a little more pie into your life with ease.
Fans of cookbooks like Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World and other great vegan baking books will find that Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar is a good addition to the bookshelf – and bakers who aren’t experienced with vegan baking will find a lot of great recipes in here, as well. Cookies are great treats to make because they generally require minimal time and equipment to make. This book embraces that fact and keeps the cookie recipes simple and tasty, focusing on ingredients that you probably already have in your cupboard to make delicious cookies that just so happen to be vegan.
The book has 100 recipes, ranging from classics like Oatmeal Raisin Cookies to more contemporary cookies, like Roasted Almond with Fleur de Sel cookies. There are drop cookies, slice-and-bake cookies, bar cookies and even a category for wholesome cookies (the kind that you won’t feel too guilty about eating with your breakfast). The recipes are straightforward and easy to follow, with plenty of great photos throughout to remind you of all the recipes that you want to try next. There are lots of tips sprinkled throughout the book about baking, too, and plenty of suggestions for flavor variations on each recipe.
Although these cookies are vegan, this book is first and foremost a book about baking great cookies. There are many suggestions offered for bakers looking for gluten free recipes and other dietary substitutions, and the wholesome chapter is for cookies that use minimally processed sweeteners and whole grains. That said, most of the recipes read just like their non-vegan counterparts, calling for all purpose flour, sugar and spices (although canola is far more common in these cookies than butter is, of course!) and bake recipes that will evoke favorite childhood cookie memories.
Even since I had an amazingly delicious coconut ice cream in Paris, I’ve wanted to make up a batch of it at home. That ice cream was amazing, creamy and full of shredded coconut. There are lots of coconut ice cream recipes out there to choose from, but since I wanted to maximize the coconut flavor in mine, I wanted to choose a recipe that used coconut milk, either in addition to cream or instead of it. I ended up trying the coconut ice cream from The Vegan Scoop. The cookbook is all vegan/nondairy ice creams and their coconut caught my eye because it only used coconut milk (not soy milk and, being a vegan book, obviously not any cream), as well as shredded coconut.
The ice cream was easy to make and turned out to be delicious. It was creamy and smooth, and seemed to taste a little lighter and more refreshing than some other coconut ice creams I’ve tried. It froze and softened up again (for seconds) nicely, without getting icy or turning into a sorbet-like consistency. The ice cream uses arrowroot starch as a thickener, not eggs. You could get away with using cornstarch as a thickener in its place if you don’t want to buy a batch just to try this recipe. That said, if you’re planning to try others from the book – they all look good – it might be worth picking up a small bag, since all the recipes call for this thickener.
I made a few small changes to the recipe as it was written. I used 800 ml coconut milk instead of the 825 ml called for in the original recipe because my cans of coconut milk each hold 400 ml, and I didn’t want to open another can just for a few tablespoons of liquid. I didn’t add coconut extract, as was suggested to boost the coconut flavor, to see how the natural flavor stood out on its own. I also doubled the amount of shredded coconut that I mixed into the ice cream. I love the chewiness that the coconut adds and you can’t beat the flavor. Unsweetened and sweetened coconut will both work in this recipe. It’s not particularly sweet on its own, and sweetened coconut will not make it too sweet if you choose to use it.
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Even though there are tons of ice creams stocked on grocers shelves, few summertime activities are as satisfying as making a batch of homemade ice cream and eating it fresh out of the ice cream maker. This can be a challenge for some home cooks who prefer not to eat eggs and dairy, but still want the satisfaction of being able to make indulgent, refreshing summer treats at home. Enter The Vegan Scoop, a cookbook full of dairy and egg free ice cream recipes. It’s perfect for vegans, vegetarians, those with dietary restrictions and non-vegans looking for a little more variety in the kitchen.
The book has 150 recipes that run the gamut from classic – Vanilla, Chocolate, Rocky Road, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough – to crazy – Peanut Butter and Jelly, Chocolate Pretzel, Thai Chili, Wasabi – and everything sweet and fruity in between. They are all quite easy to make and use similar techniques that you’d find in other ice creams. The primary difference, of course, is that these recipes use a variety of non-dairy milks, including almond milk, coconut milk and soy milk. They also call for the use of soy creamer, which adds creaminess to the finished dishes. Most use bold flavors and are generous with them, so you won’t end up with an ice cream that “sort-of” tastes like the flavor the name promises.
Some of the selling points to those cooks who normally reach for “regular” ice creams include the fact that most of these recipes have about 1/3 fewer calories than their dairy-based cousins and also contain more “healthy” ingredients, such as flaxseed and lots of fresh fruit. The book actually has lots of little tips throughout that discuss the health aspects of some of the ingredients, as well as their origins. It also has a fairly comprehensive introduction that discusses many of the ingredients (including the various types of milk) used in the book and techniques for making ice creams in general, as well as a chapter at the end with recipes for accompaniments – vegan, of course – to the ice creams.
Sometimes, when a recipe does not include eggs, it will call for “egg replacer” instead. This is most often found in vegan recipes, since vegan recipes don’t include animal products and never use eggs, although a search for egg-free bloggers will find you plenty of people who also don’t want to include eggs in their cooking. Egg replacer is a packaged product that is a dry mixture of starches and/or binding ingredients that is meant to replace some of the function of an egg in a recipe. They include ingredients like cornstarch, potato starch, soy powder and flax seed, just to name a few. Some mixtures will contain a small amount of leavening or xanthan gum, as a binder.
Egg replacer doesn’t replace eggs in all circumstances, so you wouldn’t want to make an omelette out of it, but the replacers do work well in baked goods. In baked goods, eggs usually add some moisture and some thickening and binding power to a recipe, particularly in recipes were only one or two eggs is called for. Egg replacers that are a combination of starch and water – starch for thickening and water for moisture – can mimic the function well enough that your chocolate chip cookies will still taste very good when they come out of the oven.
Some do-it-yourself egg replacer recipes, for one egg, include:
- 2 tbsp cornstarch + 1 tbsp water (what I generally use)
- 2 tbsp potato starch + 1 tbsp water
- 1 tbsp ground flaxseed + 1 tbsp water
I’ve seen suggestions to use 1/4 cup applesauce, mashed banana or other fruit purees, but these don’t have the same effect as the starch and flaxseed mixtures and can potentially make your batter a little bit too thick or heavy.
