Vegan Baking...WHY?

Hey all,

So yes, I haven't posted in a LONG time. I know. Don't hate me.

It's been a crazy month and a half. Lots of data collection for my thesis (which I now need to analyze mad-style), a lot of visits from wonderful friends and family, and packing for  our move to Virginia. It's been stressful, wonderful, and definitely a learning experience, but I miss blogging, and I miss cooking/baking new things for you guys. This post isn't so much a recipe, but rather a commentary. The recipe will come a little later when things calm down a bit.

I made oatmeal chocolate chip peanut butter banana cookies. Yes, that is a mouthful...of goodness! I was invited to a housewarming party this evening and earlier today I found myself with overripe bananas and not much time. Initially I thought banana bread, but the recipe I love takes over an hour to bake. My next thought was banana oatmeal cookies. I found a recipe that looked good and might be easy to adapt (aka add some peanut butter, etc). And then I realized...crap. I have no eggs, no butter, and not as much oatmeal as I needed.

Improv is a huge part of baking at the spur of the moment. I have a few friends that are Vegan, or gluten free, or have allergies, etc and their diet restrictions have taught me to adapt my cooking/baking and gain the knowledge necessary to do so. One might initially think ew, how the heck can a cookie without eggs, or butter taste good at all? Well it can, with a few easy adaptations. The internet is a GREAT source for picking up this knowledge. So in place of the butter, I used 3/4 of the quantity of butter, in oil and added it in the same order as I would normally add butter. In place of 1 egg, I mixed one tablespoon of ground flax seeds (a great source of plant-based omega-3), and three tablespoons of water and left it for a few minutes until it became gelatinous. Eggs are typically used as a binding agent to help keep things together and they're important in baking cakes and cookies because they lead to softer texture rather than the chewy texture of bread for example.

I also added a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar (white vinegar would work as well) because without the addition of a real egg, I didn't want my cookies to lack moistness and leavening. In Vegan baking many times, you'll see the addition of a teaspoon to a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, and moistness is one of the main reasons (also added to non-dairy milk as a replacement for buttermilk). Think back to the volcano experiment a lot of us did in elementary school. Vinegar, mixed with baking soda equals explosive bubbling. Baking and cooking are both VERY related to chemistry in the way that what you end up with is a product of a bunch of reactions with the addition of good flavors. Embrace the science and use it to adapt! The recipe already called for baking soda, so the addition of vinegar reacts with the baking soda to create the bit of rise that the cookies needed as well.

So there you have it. This improvisation in baking/cooking is what makes learning and understanding vegan baking (and any other specialty type of baking) necessary. Plus you can accommodate friends/family with lactose intolerance, allergies, food restrictions, etc, and that just makes you that much cooler. 

All in all, the cookies turned out amazing. The batch I made is GONE, which is why I don't have pictures/recipe for today (which also means they were good?). But I promise they will be up soon. Promise promise.