Baking is a hobby you can eat. Here are some tips for making delicious vegan snacks on a student budget.
Options for vegan cooking have never been better, and baking, the perfect blend of cooking and science, is no exception. Ready to become the most popular housemate? Here are our top tips for excellent vegan baking.
Butter replacement
Almost all baking recipes will have butter in them and for a lot of them, it’s considered essential to use good quality dairy butter. But there are plenty of delicious options to replace it. Stork baking blocks are suitable for vegans and some supermarkets may have slightly cheaper own-brand alternatives. The good thing about replacing butter with a vegan alternative is that it’s a 1:1 replacement; just use the measurement of butter given in a non-vegan recipe.
Egg replacement
While not every recipe will need eggs, a lot of them do, especially in things like sponge cakes. There are many different ingredients you can use to achieve the same effect and some are better for certain recipes. For example, flaxseed or aquafaba (chickpea water) are the better options for cookies.
You can also find specific egg replacements in many supermarkets. They’re relatively cheap powders that you mix with water before adding to your batter. Make sure you whisk them thoroughly before adding it to the mix to avoid lumps.
There are plenty of vegan recipes online and in cookbooks, but here’s one of our favourites to get you started…
Delicious vegan gingerbread
Ingredients
For the gingerbread
- 1 tbsp ground flaxseed
- 140g vegan baking block
- 100g dark brown sugar
- 3 tbsp golden syrup
- 350g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tbsp ground ginger
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
For the icing
- 100ml aquafaba
- 500g icing sugar
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
Method
To start, mix the flaxseed with 2 ½ tbsp of water and set it aside for five minutes to allow it to thicken. Line a baking tray with parchment. In a saucepan on low heat, melt the butter, sugar, and syrup together, then take off the heat and allow it to cool.
Add the flaxseed mixture to the cooled melted ingredients and sift in the flour, bicarb, spices and a pinch of salt. You should have a smooth dough which you’ll cool in the fridge for 30-45 minutes. While you wait, you can prepare the icing by whisking together the icing sugar, aquafaba, and vanilla extract for about 10 minutes.
Roll out the dough to around 5mm thickness and cut it into your desired shapes. Space the gingerbread evenly on the lined baking trays and place it into an oven preheated to 200C (180 for fan ovens). Bake for 12 mins, leave to cool for 15 mins, and then decorate with the icing using a piping bag.
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