The Secret to Home Vegan Baking for the Masses?

Vegan baking is like Fight Club. The first rule of vegan baking is that you do not talk about it being vegan. The second rule of vegan baking is that you do NOT talk about it being vegan! These rules are especially crucial if you’re making blueberry pancakes for anyone under 18, the universal age at which an interest in plant-based eating kicks in. Or when you’re serving chocolate cake to your mother-in-law, who is decidedly not vegan. Or even when you’re giving freshly baked peanut butter cookies to your best friend (also not remotely vegan) who has dropped by for a cup of coffee. And by “you” in these examples, I mean me, a novice vegan baker attempting to feed the skeptical and the picky without involving any animals but the family dogs, who troll for scraps.

The word “vegan” isn’t widely considered appetizing because it is rooted in denial. By its very nature, it connotes absence, paucity, a depressing lack of all the delicious things—butter, eggs, milk, and even honey—not in the mix. The term “vegan baking” conjures historical images of flax seeds bloating in water and the mucus-like liquid drained from canned chickpeas. It suggests wet zucchini bread and tragically dense muffins. Does anyone, in theory, want to eat a vegan cupcake? This instinctive distaste makes sense because we’re culturally hard-wired to associate baked goods with the animal byproducts that have become kitchen staples. Julia Child instilled in a generation of American home bakers an ideological devotion to butter. This pure, rich, golden fat is the soul of pie crusts, the backbone of cakes, the bath that gives cornbread its richness and crunch. How do you bake without it? Don’t say margarine, that chemical abomination of bad trans fats and laboratory fakery. The answer is oil. A high-quality organic oil—say pure, rich, golden sunflower—is just as flavorful and hearty and imparts the same velvety mouthfeel. Oil for butter, OK. But what about those magical, structure-building eggs? Can we even call it baking if there’s no white and no yolk in the batter? The aforementioned flax seeds in water can replace whole eggs, and whipped chickpea liquid (known as aquafaba) can substitute for beaten egg whites. But you can also go for something grown a little closer to home: fresh applesauce, or pumpkin or winter squash puree. Using a quarter cup of puree for each one egg called for in most recipes gives baked goods structure and a small boost of flavor. I add a little vinegar to most purees I use to balance the sweetness.

Milk is a simpler switch due to the proliferation of modern non-dairy substitutes. Successful baking isn’t dependent on the dairy-ness of milk, just the sugar and protein it contains. So any non-dairy kind will do: almond, cashew, soy. I favor oat milk for its rich, clean flavor and satisfying similarity to cow’s milk, and for the fact that oats are grown here in Maine. Although homemade oat milk can separate in coffee or tea, that isn’t a problem when it’s mixed into a batter. Now let’s talk refined white sugar. It’s vegan, all right, but since we’re having so much fun with plant-based, local substitutions, let’s tap a Maine sweetener, too. Right here in my fridge, there happens to be a big jug of maple syrup, Maine’s very own source of plant-based sweetness. Boiled-down maple tree sap, unlike refined sugar, is full of minerals and antioxidants. It’s low-glycemic, so you won’t get that blood sugar rush/crash that white sugar causes, which ultimately means you can eat more cake! Maple syrup also has flavor, a rich caramel depth that refined sugar lacks. In a classic chocolate cake, maple syrup boosts the cocoa’s richness, setting it off like black velvet with rubies. In pancakes, maple syrup mixed with a little apple cider vinegar and applesauce gives the batter a pleasing tang and lightness. And in peanut butter cookies, which can be dry, maple syrup adds moisture and depth.

“Can I have another pancake?” asks the visiting carnivorous teenager. “This cake is so delicious,” says my non-vegan mother-in-law, cutting herself a second piece. And as we drink our coffee and discuss the myriad controversial topics at hand (but not vegan baking), my friend and I snarf the entire plate of peanut butter cookies. No one compliments me on my ability to bake something palatable without using animal products, but that’s only because they can’t tell. And neither do I.