Until last year I had thought the idea of vegan baking was disgusting. I had had a cookie that was supposed to taste good, but it tasted like sand. Last year I braved a cupcake, and it was fantastic. I also have a roommate who cannot have much dairy so I decided to experiment.
People get scared when you tell them it's vegan baking (unless they are allergic to eggs and dairy. Then they love you a lot.). That makes sense. It's terrifying to bake, and more frightening to share it with people. Avocado should not be in cake. It's green. Yeggh. Like this Chocolate Avocado Cake? Or these Avocado Chili Brownies? Weird. But they end up being delicious.
Vegan baking substitutes are often healthier than the original which is super cool, and make the baked goods a lot more moist. Veganism requires more creativity than normal baking because of the limited ingredients. And creativity is cool.
Substitutes:
Eggs: applesauce, bananas
Butter: avocado, vegetable oil
Milk: soy, almond milk
Butter: avocado, vegetable oil
Milk: soy, almond milk
1 Cup Buttermilk: 1 cup soy/almond/rice milk + 2 tbsp lemon juice, let sit for 5 minutes
Check out PETA's Cheat Sheet
On Sunday I wanted to bake a cinnamon bun cake because my apartment was having a movie night. I ended up having to use applesauce AND a banana because I didn't have enough applesauce to substitute two eggs. Then I realized I needed to put in butter and luckily I had one small avocado left. What did I learn? I should have mashed up the banana and the avocado separately before mixing it into the batter. There were tiny chunks of green that showed up after I baked the cake. I was also worried that you would be able to notice the banana and avocado once it was baked because it was very noticeable in the batter. That didn't happen.
Words of advice: experimentation is fun, but it's probably safer to find recipes already labeled as vegan. Then again, I usually toss extra things into my recipes before I've tried them following the original recipe.
[Vegan] Cinnamon Bun Cake
Cake: 3 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp ish cinnamon
4 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 soy/almond/rice/regular milk
2 eggs/banana/applesauce
3 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup melted butter/mashed avocado
Optional: raisins, chocolate chips, nuts
Topping:
1 cup butter, softened - vegan butter, etc... I used margarine (yegh)
1 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp flour
1 tbsp cinnamon
Optional Glaze: (I never use it)
2 cups powdered sugar
5 tbsp milk or substitute
1 tsp vanilla
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. SPray a 9x13 glass baking sheet.
Mix all the cake ingredients except butter, in a mixer if possible. It works without. Add the melted butter. Pour into the pan.
Mix the topping until it is creamy. Drop evenly over the batter and stir it around with a knife to "marble" the cake.
Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes, when a toothpick comes out clean.
Once cooled down you can put the glaze on. Or not.
It's delicious.
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