Baking – without eggs, milk, and butter? That works and tastes good on top of it. Vegan baking is the trend. The trick is to find the right vegetable alternatives for these classic and traditional ingredients. These are no longer only available in organic food stores or health food shops, but in most supermarkets nationwide. Our professional chef has a few tips for perfect vegan cakes, tarts, and pastries.
Alternative Dairy Products
It is relatively easy to find many tasty alternatives for classic dairy products such as butter, milk, quark, and even cream.
For example, butter can easily be replaced by vegetable oils and vegetable margarine. There are many different vegan dairy products with a base of soy, almonds, oats, coconut, rice, or various nuts. You don’t have to do without cream either. Cream made from rice, for example, is particularly low-fat and gluten-free and is extremely easy to whip. Tasteless, soft silk tofu can be used like cream cheese or quark in cheesecake.
Replace Eggs with Vegetable Binders
During baking, eggs act, among other things, as a raising agent, moisturizer, loosening, and binding agent. If you want to leave them out, suitable alternatives are vegetable binding agents such as crushed banana or applesauce, and the versatile locust bean gum can be used instead of egg yolk.
Half a crushed banana, for example, is exactly equal to one egg, as is 80 grams of applesauce. A true miracle substitute is vegetable egg replacement powder. This is usually made from corn starch and lupine flour and must be mixed with water. Ground linseed and chia seeds can bind liquids very well too. By the way – chickpea water known as Aquafaba mixed with a pinch of salt can be whipped up wonderfully as beaten egg white.
Substitute for Animal Based Gelatin
Animal gelatin is an integral part of many baked goods, just like in classic fruit tarts. However, there are various helpful alternative products.
Agar-agar is one such. The gelling agent obtained from dried seaweed comes from Japan. The powder has to be boiled to turn it into a gel making it perfect for vegan desserts such as panna cotta or jelly. Guar gum, obtained from the seeds of a plant native to India and Pakistan, can also be used for gelling. This vegetable binder is perfect for cold dishes like ice cream or yogurt.
Discover more delicious vegan pastries here
Our Recipes Expert
Maximilian Rustler heads our recipe department. The professional chef knows what is important for vegan baking. We present him and his work in our blog.
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