Vegan Holiday Treats

No butter, milk, or eggs! Does a concoction without these ingredients qualify as dessert? It does if you’re following a vegan diet.

A vegan avoids eating all animal products, including meat, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy products, and any foods containing animal byproducts.

Vegan Isa Chandra Moskowitz, co-author of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (Marlowe & Company, 2006), asserts, “We don’t need dairy and eggs to have sweet, satisfying, and decadent treats.” (Check out theppk.com.)

You can substitute the following ingredients for dairy and animal products in your favourite recipes.

Milk Substitutes

You can easily substitute rice, soy, grain, and nut-based milks for cows’ milk. They can be used with confidence in cakes, muffins, loaves, pudding, and pastries.

Butter Substitutes

Liquid fat can be replaced by olive oil.

Lard, processed vegetable oils, and shortening can be replaced by organic oils such as safflower and sunflower. Use in brownies, cookies, quick breads, and coffee cakes.

Solid fat can be replaced by a nonhydrogenated, expeller pressed oil, sold in measured cubes and spreads. Use it to prepare cholesterol-free pie crusts, frostings, and crumb toppings. Refrigerate these oils to prevent spoilage.

Egg Substitutes for 1 Egg

The following ingredients mimic the binding properties of eggs and can be used when preparing cookies, cakes, loaves, and muffins:

• 1/4 cup (60 mL) pur? applesauce, bananas, dates, or prunes
• 1/4 cup (60 mL) tofu, firm or silken, pur?
• 2 Tbsp (30 mL) nut butter

Alternative Sweeteners

In place of white sugar, use organic unbleached sugar, turbinado, evaporated cane juice, or beet sugar.

In place of honey, use rice syrup, agave nectar, stevia, or maple syrup.

Recipe: Crispy Rice Nut Butter Squares