Everyone knows vegan baked goods can be made, and can be made to taste amazing!
That being said, most people (especially those who aren’t vegan) assume that vegan baked goods must be made from scratch. While they most definitely can be made from scratch, they also can be made from pre-packaged mix! The only caveat would be that you have that you have to make sure that the ingredients included are vegan. Most of the time they are vegan, usually when I find they aren’t, it’s because they use milk chocolate in the chocolate chips. The mix I used, included soy chocolate chips! Just by coincidence it wasn’t marketed as vegan.
Prep
For the ingredients, the package asked for 1 whole egg, and a half cup of butter. To make this vegan all I did was substitute the egg for a product that can be bought at Target called the neat neat egg. The neat egg is mainly used in baking as a substitute binder, but that isn’t your only option. To substitute an egg you could use flax seeds, chia seeds, applesauce, a banana, etc. The best egg substitute really just depends on what you’re making, sometimes the applesauce or banana complement what you’re making, and sometimes it really clashes or overtakes the flavor. Also, sometimes certain substitute choices are made for health reasons. Applesauce is no doubt more healthy than an egg, especially if we’re referencing cholesterol intake. So one could also take that into account. For the butter substitute, on the package it gives instructions for using oil instead of butter, so of course if you so choose, you could do that instead of using a vegan butter. If you decide to use oil the texture is a bit different and in my opinion it leaves you feeling a bit heavy afterwards. Instead, I chose to use Earth Balance, which is a vegan butter that mimics the flavor and texture of dairy butter.
Baking
After you choose what substitutes you’re going to use, you really just follow the instructions from there. In my case I was making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (which
happen to be my favorite) and those cookies are definitely an arm workout in regards to stirring in the Earth Balance (butter substitute) and the neat egg. In fact this wasn’t in the recipe but I added an extra teaspoon of water just to help catch any of the extra oats at the bottom that I couldn’t quite get into the dough. After that, I scooped them into rounded tablespoons and placed them on a baking sheet. When making the neat egg, it’ll look a bit funny to someone who has never used it before. Remember it isn’t supposed to look like an egg, it just is replacing it as a binder,
so as long as the texture is “eggy” that’s all that matters. These cookies don’t spread very far so you can pack quite a few more onto the baking sheet. I cooked them at 375º for 11 minutes. These always have a tendency to look uncooked but if you pay attention to the edges as soon as they turn brown take them out and let them cool for 10 or so minutes and they will harden perfectly. After that, just serve with your favorite non-dairy milk and enjoy!☺
Vegetrails 