These days, it's easy to find great vegan pastries at bakeries, cafés, and coffee shops. It's a little trickier to bake them at home. Because baking is more of a science than an art, swapping and eliminating ingredients from a traditional cake, cookie, or muffin at will is not a good idea. Each ingredient works together to create a greater good (for example, in traditional baking, creaming the butter and sugar together allows the tiny sharp edges of the sugar crystals to slice through the butter, perforating it and incorporating air into it—making for fluffier baked goods).
But you don't have to rely on butter and heavy cream for great baked goods. You just have to read up on the most common mistakes people make when they take their muffins to vegan town. Here's what most people get wrong.
1. Swapping Any Old Substitute for the Eggs
"Replacing eggs is just part of the equation in the science behind vegan baking," says Danielle Konya, the owner of Vegan Treats, a vegan bakery in Bethlehem, PA. So while you may have heard that banana or apple sauce are a great substitute for eggs, don't just swap them one-for-one and hope for the best.
The best way to find success with vegan baking is to follow a tested vegan recipe. But if you are taking the chance and converting a traditional recipe into a vegan one, go with products and ingredients that work well and have tested ratios. Says Konya, "We like EnerG egg replacer, which is potato starch and helps to bind ingredients."
2. Simply Eliminating the Dairy
Dairy, whether it's milk or yogurt or sour cream, helps keep baked goods moist. It's also unfortunately not vegan. But don't skimp on the creamy stuff—it really helps to make a dense and luscious-textured pastry. Experiment with alt-milks, like almond milk. Konya notes cashew as another favorite, but mentions that at her bakery, they often use soy, to avoid any complications with nut allergies. "We also like soy yogurts, especially in cookies when you want that soft center with nice chewy edges," she explains.
Yep, they're vegan. Photo: Vegan Treats
3. Skimping on the Fat
If you think vegan baked goods are dry and crumbly, you probably haven't had one that's been made with the right fat (or the right amount of fat), according to Konya. Butter is what makes traditional baked goods so darn tasty—as well as helps keep it all together—so you can't merely eliminate it and hope for the best. Use a shortening, and don't try to get all "healthy" on us by skimping on the amount. And on that note, the final common mistake in vegan baking is…
4. Being Too Virtuous
Look, we can definitely get down with a healthy dessert. (We even have a few of our own at BA!) But let's not confuse "vegan" with "healthy." After all, you're not making a salad. You're making a scone, or cake, or cupcake. So if that recipe calls for a cup of vegan sugar, go ahead and pour it in. You won't be doing yourself any favors by cutting corners. In fact, not only will the end result taste less than stellar, it likely won't turn out as well as if you'd followed a recipe.
Did somebody say…vegan thin mint cookies?
