Vegan Cooking Tips with Ann Gentry

Ann Gentry is a chef, restaurateur, food educator and visionary. She opened Real Food Daily in Los Angeles 1993, a totally vegan and organic restaurant that has since spawned another in West Hollywood. Please visit Real Food Daily to find out more about this truly unique restaurant and to learn more about Ann Gentry.

Question:

I would like to convert my families favorite old non vegan recipes. I am looking for rules of thumb to refer to for egg substitutions. I've heard about subbing tofu. Will this work across the board? How much tofu per egg?

Question: What tips do you have to make desserts look and taste good with out sugar?

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Answer:

This answer covers both these questions. First let me address the egg/dairy substitute concern. It can be done and really it is so simple. No one wants to believe it is possible to create a light and fluffy moist dessert. People can't imagine that a beautiful baked good can taste good and be made without the eggs and butter and Crisco oil!. We do it everyday at Real Food Daily. In place of eggs, dairy and butter - we use tofu, soymilk, oil and some dried fruits. We bake with a high quality organic canola oil to hold the flours together. Contrary to popular belief, you do not always need the egg substation.

If you are converting an egg/dairy based cake recipe you will have to experiment with the volume of oil to flour and other liquid (soy milk or fruit juice).

When I first starting baking vegan, I tried substituting tofu in my cakes and other baked goods and I was disappointed because the tofu made cakes, cookies, muffins and other flour based desserts too dense, sometimes the texture was almost rubbery. I experimented with prune or date puree and often the flavor produced from the dried fruits was too strong for the recipe. One day, I tried oil and voila! The cake held together and was closer to a cake consistency.

As for the sweetness concern:

At RFD, we use maple syrup and maple sugar as our primary sweetener. We prefer maple syrup/sugar to the other healthier sweeteners like rice syrup, honey or barley malt because the consistency is so much lighter. The thicker sweeteners make a dessert go heavy and dense. Certainly in a brownie or possibly a muffin that can be fine, but not for a cake. Here is a list of how you can use maple syrup instead of other healthier sweeteners.

¼ cup of maple syrup equals
= 2 T. molasses
= ¾ cup barley malt
= 1 cup apple juice
= ½ cup apple butter
= ¼ cup fruit concentrate
= ½ cup raisin

Here is a conversion list when wanting to substitute a healthier sweetener for white sugar in an old fashioned recipe. I find you usually have to reduce the amount of liquid the recipe has called for as well.

1 cup sugar equals
= 1 2/3 cup maple syrup minus 1 2/3; cup liquid
= 1 ½ cup molasses minus 1 ½ cup liquid
= 3 cups barley malt minus 3 cups liquid

I always say that people love baked goods so much because they want to taste: sweet, fat and flour. And that's fine, just satisfy that urge with healthier ingredients and choices. Here's a fat substitute that in certain baked goods like muffins, brownies, fruit crisp or fruit and nut bars works really well.

Prune Puree
2 2/3 cup pitted prunes
1 cup hot water

For best results, soak the prunes in the water overnight.
Place prunes and water in a food processor.
Process about one minute, until pureed.
Puree may be covered and refrigerated for up to one month.

Making a dessert look good requires skill, the right utensils, the right ingredients and a little fun and patience. If you are serious about baking load up on cookbooks that lend themselves to perfecting baking. There are a lot of healthy dessert books and even if you have the old fashioned recipe you are longing to convert, hopefully I have given you some direction here.

Equip your kitchen with the correct utensils. Muffin pans, small round baking pans, deep dish pie pans, cake pedestals, icing knifes, scoopers, cooling racks, pie cutters, spatulas, a flour sifter to name a few. Good ingredients. You'll find high quality flours in your local natural foods store. Beautiful fruits to garnish you cakes, cookies and muffins. Try all the various soymilks and rice based liquids like amasake to use as ingredients in making a healthy dessert.

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