The Final Countdown

As a last hurrah for this project, I decided to revisit two desserts I had tried but weren't entirely successful: Meringue cookies and chocolate chip cookies. Last time, the meringues were disappointing; the "aquafaba" (water from a can of chickpeas) did not froth up enough to create the creamy meringue batter, and what little volume my cookies started with was lost during baking. This time, I found a specifically vegan recipe (here), which also called for aquafaba. It did not differ much from the other recipes I had looked at before, but this time I followed the instructions to the letter. I was also much more patient. It took about 20 minutes for the sugar and aquafaba to froth up, but once they did the result was a silky-smooth batter that kept its shape for ages. Trying the batter was like eating cool liquid marshmallow. After 2 hours in the oven at 200F, the meringues were ready. They were feather-light, smooth, and delicious. I have officially conquered the meringue, eggiest of desserts!

Last time I made chocolate chip cookies, they ended up tasty, but too dry and crumbly. This time, I used the same recipe (here), with the same substitutions (egg replacer and coconut oil). I did not make any other changes to the recipe, and unlike the last time, the cookies were moist and stayed together well. As I was careful about my measurements, my conclusion is that I made some errors in measurement the last time. Luckily, both times the cookies were delicious.

Overall, I feel I have improved in using appropriate substitutions, replicating "typical" desserts, and general confidence in my baking skills. Mission: Accomplished!

Brownies from a mix and accidental brittle

This week I decided to try my hand at making candy! I wanted to make saltwater taffy, to be exact. I have never made taffy or any sort of candy before, so I was not sure how the experiment would go. Also, I was unable to find a vegan-specific recipe, so I adapted my concoction from: http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/candy/recipe-taffy.html . I bought some vegetable glycerin (and now need to find a use for the rest of the bottle!), orange flavouring (because the rest of my family objected to almond extract), and substituted coconut oil for the butter. I did not use food colouring, because I could not find any that a) had no questionable ingredients (possibly animal-derived) and b) did not cost an arm and a leg. I mixed all the ingredients, and began boiling them... and boiling them... and boiling them. I had to heat the mixture to 270F, and at one point made the mistake of sampling some with a spoon while it was still hot (ouch!). All told, boiling the mixture to the right temperature took about 30 minutes. Unfortunately, I checked on it at about 35 minutes, and it was almost 300F. I poured the mixture onto a greased baking sheet, but unfortunately it cooled to a solid too hard to pull for taffy, as the picture below shows. Luckily, once I smoothed it back out and let it cool some more, I could smash it to make pieces of orange brittle. My willing human test subject and I thought it was delicious, even though it couldn't be classified as taffy.

I also made gluten-free brownies as a snack for one of my classes, but since I didn't have gluten-free flour, I bought a mix. The mix called for eggs and butter, which I substituted with Ener-G egg replacer and coconut oil. They were well-received by the class, but I won't count them for the purposes of this project because it wasn't really homemade. I think I may be becoming a baking snob!

As this project winds down, I will take a second stab at some of my less successful creations, to see if what I have learned can help me improve them.

Vlog!

The recipe I used was from: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/20144/banana-banana-bread/. I substituted vegan butter and Ener-G egg replacer.

A Successful Week

This week I decided to make an old standby (chocolate chip cookies) and something I'd never made before (souffle). My thinking was, if one was less than successful, I could hedge my bets on the other. Luckily, both recipes I tried went swimmingly. I decided to adapt the cookies from a Betty Crocker recipe, thinking that making substitutions would be less risky with something simple. I used Peta's baking "cheat sheet" to choose the substitutions. I substituted an equal amount of coconut oil for butter, and used Ener-G egg replacer to, well, replace the egg. Overall, the cookies were good (with one taste taster eating enough to give herself a stomach ache), but there were two issues. First, my young Helper accidentally added a fair bit of extra vanilla, so the cookies turned out more vanilla-y than chocolate-y. Second, the cookies were crumbly. Next time, I will add an extra 1/4 cup or so of oil to ensure they stay moist. I was more worried about the souffle, because I have never made, eaten, or frankly ever even souffle anywhere other than on cartoons, where they caused great distress by deflating. Luckily I had no such issues.

Because I had never made souffle before, I thought it best to stick to an established recipe. I made one small adjustment: I used wheat flour instead of gluten-free. The souffle rose about double its original volume, which I was pleased to see. And apparently, souffle tastes a lot like mousse, which I love. My taste tester said it was good, and I thought it was decent, although a little bitter. Putting some fresh fruit like strawberries on top would make it perfect. Next week will be the week of the "cheese"cake, which based on some preliminary research looks fairly time-consuming. I will take advantage of the long weekend to make it, and try my hand at making a vlog to document the attempt. http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/ultimate-chocolate-chip-cookies/77c14e03-d8b0-4844-846d-f19304f61c57 http://www.peta.org/living/food/baking-cheat-sheet/ http://www.sarahbakesgfree.com/2014/09/chocolate-souffles-individual-cakes.html

February 1st update

This week I was stricken by flu. It wasn't fatal, but I avoided baking until I was less contagious. Therefore I skipped the basic cake I was going to make, and skipped right to the lava cake. Learning from past mistakes, I stuck like glue to a single recipe. I also chose a recipe that was vegan from the start, so I wouldn't have to worry about substitutions. I used the following recipe: . I did make on slight change: I substituted soy milk for almond milk because I didn't have any on hand. Almond milk has a more pleasant flavour, in my opinion, but soy milk is a) more nutritious and b) indistinguishable once mixed with sugar and chocolate. Compared to the meringues, the cakes were much less labour-intensive. Preparing the batter took about 20 minutes, and I baked the cakes for 18 minutes. The end result was this:

The presentation is not particularly elegant, but the cakes themselves turned out nearly perfectly. They rose into the proper shape, were fluffy, and did not stick to the pan or burn. In terms of flavour and texture, I had advance warning they would be tasty- leftover egg-free batter makes cleanup delicious. Once cooked, I was disappointed to find that the cake had cooked through; it was not "molten" inside like it should have been. However, this was not the case. When eaten, the outside was solid and the inside was very soft and "gooey". My willing human test subject agreed, saying it was delicious and that the inside was perfect. She then defeated the purpose by pairing it with a dairy ice cream, but the cake stands as a success. I was discouraged after last week's underwhelming meringues, but this success has bolstered my confidence. It is an issue, of course, that one setback can impact my mindset so intensely. In future, I should reassure myself with the adage of "learning from my mistakes". It seems to have worked in this case. In the coming week, I will tackle two desserts: a simple cookie to maintain confidence and share with family (they were upset I had only made two cakes), and a souffle. I fully expect the souffle to fail, so I will try 2 or 3 different recipes to see which gives me the best result.

End-of-January Update

This week, I made my first experiment: meringue cookies. I only made one batch, but I should have made more, for reasons which will become apparent. Meringue has two main ingredients: sugar and egg whites. Therefore, I had to substitute fully half of the recipe. I had read a few articles that said that the packing liquid from a can of chickpeas works well as a frothy egg replacer, so that is what I used. I used approximately the same volume of "aquafaba" as I would to egg whites, and added 1/4 cup of sugar for each. I whipped the mixture for several minutes. It became frothy, but did not stiffen enough to make structurally sound cookies. I added 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar (a stiffener) for good measure, but it did not do much. Then I realized the conversion ratio for aquafaba is more like 3 Tbps per egg, and added more. When that didn't work, I added more sugar. In the end, the mixture stayed stiff enough to make cookies that looked like cookies and not a puddle, but not airy enough to be proper meringue.

From this experiment, I learned that I really must make multiple batches to compare results. Also, I learned to triple-check the directions before beginning. In future, any questions I have about tweaking amounts of ingredients will defer to recipe commentors, who have already experienced making the recipe and tend to offer good advice. My meringues were not successful (they did not have the required "fluffiness"), but they did taste quite good (although, being mainly sugar, this is not unexpected). For next week, I will be a little less ambitious and bake a simple cake. If that cake is successful, I will attempt to make a lava cake. But first, I should probably finish these meringues...

Week 2 Update

I've taken a sort of stepping stone towards baking this week, and some inspiration fell into my lap. First, I made seitan, or mock chicken (something I've never done before). The basic ingredients are gluten and vegetable broth, and so I've created a sort of cooking/ baking hybrid monster with my bread/"meat". The seitan turned out decently (good flavour, though too chewy) and it gave me the confidence boost I needed to begin baking properly. The inspiration came last night, as I was eating out in a restaurant, and had black forest "cheese"cake for dessert. It was delicious, just like a high quality cheesecake, and my dining partner agreed. It was, however, $9 per slice, and I have resolved to make a not-cheesecake part of my repertoire. Today, I did some preliminary research and read a few recipes for vegan cheesecake. One I dismissed out of hand because it called for vegan sour cream (which is terrible), but the others looked more reasonable, and had few (8-10) ingredients. So far I haven't encountered any particular difficulties, but I also haven't yet begun my experiments, with their capacity for utter disaster. In the next few days, I will begin to amass the ingredients I will need throughout the project. My concrete step for next Genius Hour is to try my hand at meringue cookies: very simple, with only two ingredients (sugar and eggs/something to fluff said sugar up), and I will do some research to decide what the best method of fluffing might be.

Hello all! Welcome to my blog, where I will be exploring a topic I have begun to learn about, but am still in the beginning stages. The question I will try to answer is as follows: "How successfully can I adapt variously complex dessert recipes to be vegan?" My ultimate goal is to become more comfortable baking; I used to bake cookies and muffins often (with varying degrees of success) but since becoming vegan I've played it safe, not making anything more complex than chocolate chip cookies. I will base my progress on three criteria: whether I enjoy eating what I've made, whether my willing human test subjects enjoy it, and how similar my creation is to what I am trying to emulate. The most important criterion is of course my own personal enjoyment, but since I really want to challenge myself, the similarity factor is not far behind. I will make several simpler desserts, as well as at least three of the following: meringue cookies, soufflé, crème brûlée, "proper" Danish pastry (à la my great-grandmother), lava cake, baked Alaska, Aebleskiver (Danish doughnuts), and/or some sort of candy. Some, or perhaps all, of my experiments will be utter disasters. But no matter what the result, I'll almost certainly enjoy the experience.