October 12th, 2018 - Adventures in Vegan Baking

Vegan chocolate cake batter is finger licking good!

​I had never been interested or curious about vegan baking. I try to consume as many veggies, fruits, and legumes as I can to optimize my health, but I am firmly an eggs, butter, and dairy person both in my regular cooking and especially in my baking. Nothing can beat the smell of butter, and eggs add a richness and fluffiness to the texture of any cake.  I have always associated vegan baked goods as a poor imitation of the real thing. Whenever I have been asked if also make vegan or gluten-free variations of any of the cakes that I make, and my usual reply is "I don't."

However recently, I have already had two good experiences with vegan baking (it also helps that I was baking with a friend so there was also a social element ;) ). The first cake we made was a vegan chocolate cake and the second was a vegan sweet potato rum cake with a rum glaze. 
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For the vegan chocolate cake. I was initially a little freaked out about using vegan butter (it just don't seem right), but it turned out pretty good! The cake was light and fluffy and almost as amazing as my regular chocolate cake.

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Ingredients for sweet potato rum cake

​The sweet potato rum cake turned out great! Both my vegan friend and I ended up eating multiple slices of the cake and another non-vegan friend enjoyed it.  It is also a healthish cake with the sweet potato, whole wheat flour, and the added fiber from the egg replacement. My apartment  smelled like Thanksgiving!

The glaze is really good and something I would use in my regular non-vegan baking

​My personal take ways:

• Choose the recipe with care.  What made the sweet potato coconut rum cake a success for me is that the recipe was already vegan friendly since it is dependent on the taste of the sweet potato. Any recipe where fruit, chocolate, or coconut is the highlight is a go for me.
• I think next time I'll use applesauce instead of the store-bought egg replacement. The egg replacement smelled too much like a science project to me.
• Chocolate anything is always safe as the chocolate has a strong flavor.
• Spices (i.e. nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves) are really be your friend in vegan baking

 
To recreate the vegan chocolate cake, check out the recipe here. For the vegan sweet potato cake, everything can be found at your regular grocery store and there were no special ingredients except for the egg replacement. The recipe can be found here.  I used koala rum which I got at the local liqueur store.

I have gone from being a complete and utter vegan baking skeptic to being slightly more open-minded. Stay tuned for more...maybe:)