A few online sources for vegan products are:
Vegan Essentials at veganessentials.com—Vegan-owned and -operated; does not sell anything tested on animals or containing any animal products, great source for vegan whipped cream, marshmallows and baking mixes
Pangea, The Vegan Store at www.veganstore.com—Sells only goods from countries that have labor laws in place to protect workers against sweatshop industry; prides itself on being a cruelty-free source for shopping, excellent selection of vegan “cheeses” and other dairy-free spreads and products
Amazon at amazon.com—Carries select vegan products, many in large quantities; good for whole-case discounts
This list is by no means exhaustive, and if you’re outside the United States, you will, no doubt, have different sites to choose from. These are simply some of our favorites.
CHAPTER FIVE: A NOTE ABOUT SOY FOODS AND GMO’S
Soy products have come under heavy fire in recent years, as soybeans (along with corn) are among some of the most heavily genetically modified foods on the market. When shopping, I look for products that are non-Genetically Modified Organisms (non-GMO) certified or verified. Companies that shun GMOs are usually proud to label their products as non-GMO, so look for the printed bragging rights.
CHAPTER SIX: THE INGREDIENTS
We’ll be using some vegan substitutes in this cookbook, and now that you know how to get them, let’s get down to particulars, shall we?
Butter Alternatives
Whether in pie crust, cookies or frosting, butter is a common staple in any baker’s refrigerator. Margarine is a viable substitute in most cases, but most commercial margarines rely on whey or other milk proteins to make them creamy and smooth.
Earth Balance® Vegan Buttery Sticks are versatile and easy to use, if you can find a convenient and affordable source for them. We’ve taken to using a commercial stick margarine which is, as Christina-Marie likes to say, “accidentally vegan.” That is, its ingredients are vegan, but it’s not marketed as a vegan product. You can find Nucoa® at nearly all retail chain grocers, and it easily adapts to our recipes.
Cream Cheese Alternatives
Cream cheese was one of the foods Christina-Marie most missed when she became vegan. A bagel just didn’t taste right without a smooth layer of cream cheese swiped across the top, and she suffered what seemed an eternity of naked bagels before finding Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese®. This little tub of heaven combines tofu, soybean oil, locust bean, non-dairy lactic acid and other ingredients to produce a passable vegan alternative to cream cheese. Tofutti also offers a blend without hydrogenated oils.
Another vegan cream-cheese alternative is Vegan Gourmet Cream Cheese Alternative® by Follow Your Heart®. At about the same price as Tofutti’s product, Vegan Gourmet boasts a higher percentage of organic ingredients and zero hydrogenated oils.
Sour Cream Alternatives
Like its cream cheese cousin, vegan sour cream has come a long way in taste, consistency, and texture. Some of our favorites are Tofutti Sour Supreme® and its non-hydrogenated counterpart, Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream®. Again, Vegan Gourmet® also makes an excellent, mostly-organic competitor.
Our personal preference is for convenience, and in Christina-Marie’s part of the country, Tofutti® products are easier to come by than Vegan Gourmet®, so she uses the former most often. Both brands are comparable in cost, and the added bonus of organic ingredients in Vegan Gourmet® products is certainly not snub-worthy.
Milk Alternatives
If you’re allergic to soy, you’re reading the wrong book. We use soy milk and soy-based dairy alternatives at every turn. That being said, if you have a preference for non-soy milk, feel free to experiment with nut milks, like cashew or almond, or grain milks like rice or oat. Also, we’ve heard of bakers getting good results with hemp milk, but it’s not readily available and can be expensive, so we haven’t experimented much with that one.
The primary variable in milk substitutes that will enhance or destroy a recipe is “body.” That is, how watery is the milk, and how will it affect baking time or measurement? A bit of trial-and-error will answer these questions. Baking times may need to be increased for milks with less body, and measurements may need to be decreased for thinner milks when adding them to frostings or sauces.
In creating these recipes, we’ve used Silk® Vanilla Soymilk; full-fat, because Christina-Marie is genuinely comfortable with the size of her present “caboose”. Silk® is widely available at most retail locations, is non-GMO, and it does come in a lower-calorie “light” variety. Again, a bit of adjustment may be necessary in some recipes, if you opt for the light version.
Yogurt Alternatives
Good soy-based yogurts provide body, a smooth consistency, and that famous yogurt “tang.” We use WholeSoy & Co.® vanilla soy yogurt, because it’s available in an economical, 24-ounce size at our local grocery stores, and it’s non-GMO verified. Other vegan soy yogurts are produced by Nancy’s®, and other companies.
Be careful in selecting your soy yogurt to ensure the cultures are not grown in milk, as some companies—who shall, for purposes of this book, remain nameless in their non-vegan shame—use milk-grown cultures, added to a soy base.
Egg Alternatives
There are a ton of “make your own” egg replacer recipes out there. Some call for flax seed, some call for agar agar, and still others call for fruit or combinations of multiple ingredients.
In our experiences, none are as reliable in baking as a powdered egg replacer, which takes over both the binding and leavening duties of eggs in a recipe. The most common and easy-to-find brand is Ener-G® Egg Replacer, available in the natural foods or baking section of many groceries, or available online at http://www.ener-g.com/egg-replacer.html. Ener-G® was used to develop the recipes in this cookbook.
Vegan Chocolate
When chocolate is needed in this book, you’ll find the recipes call for vegan chocolate chips. Finding vegan chocolate may seem an impossible task as you cruise your grocery aisles and see shelves and bins stocked full of “semi-sweet milk chocolate chips,” but don’t despair. Simply check ingredient lists very carefully, and you may find that even some name-brand chocolate companies have chips lacking dairy, even though they’re not marketed as such.
Additionally, several vegan-marketed chocolate chips brands are out there, including Tropical Source®, Sunspire® and Enjoy Life®. Notably, Enjoy Life® chips are not only dairy-free, but also soy- and gluten-free.
For some of the recipes, we’ve used Xocai® “Healthy Chocolate” products. The health benefits of Xocai® are undeniable—it’s full of antioxidants, minerals and flavonols— but please note not all Xocai® products are vegan-friendly. As always, read labels. Xocai® is cold-processed, preserving the natural healthy properties of cacao. When using Xocai® in baking, take care not to warm the product above 100 degrees, in order to preserve all those fantastic health benefits.
Baking Mixes
All-purpose baking mixes rock! A single box yields the promise of pancakes, waffles, biscuits, scones, breads and much, much more.
