Vegan baking tips

As if having three 15-year-old boys wasn't enough to juggle, factor in that one is a vegetarian and another is a "pasta-vore," meaning he lives on pasta. Then there's the husband who is vegetarian, though he will eat fish.

Susan Kaplan is an experienced cook but wanted to learn more about vegan baking to create desserts all four would enjoy; she's often cooking three different dishes.

So the Norfolk mom recently drove to the Virginia Beach kitchen of Betsy DiJulio, another accomplished cook who's been a vegan for two years. DiJulio had an impressive menu ready to prepare: cookie-dough brownies with chocolate ganache, gingerbread cupcakes with orange cream-cheese frosting, chocolate mousse pie and oatmeal dried-cranberry cookies. All without dairy milk, butter or chicken eggs.

They began the brownies first. The recipe was simple, DiJulio said, but required three steps - the brownies, a layer of cookie dough, then topped with ganache. DiJulio chopped up a ripe banana into a mixing bowl.

"The banana acts as an egg," DiJulio said, as Kaplan began to mix. "It won't make it rise, but it makes the brownies moist."

"Do you cut down on the sugar?" Kaplan asked.

"No, I don't."

Kaplan then dumped in everything else while DiJulio mixed up decaf coffee - two tablespoons of instant with 1/4 cup of water. The coffee will intensify the chocolate flavor, DiJulio said.

After blending the ingredients, Kaplan beat the batter by hand for 50 strokes. Over-mixing the batter will develop the gluten and make the brownies more like bricks. DiJulio watched as the batter churned into a rich, chocolate brown.

"The glorious thing about vegan baking is that there is no egg so you can eat all the batter you want," she said.

Kaplan poured it into an 8-inch pan, then put it in an oven preheated to 300. DiJulio set the timer for 25 minutes and turned to begin the cupcakes, a recipe from the cookbook "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World."

DiJulio suggested that the cupcakes, like the brownies, be beaten by hand. An electric mixer can be used, but only until the ingredients are well combined. The cupcakes have no eggs, but they have leavening. The recipe calls for molasses, which, DiJulio said, helps with the moisture factor.

Kaplan began combining ingredients as DiJulio directed her to use vegan sour cream instead of yogurt.

"I'm not a fan of soy yogurt," she explained. "It's real loose, not like dairy yogurt."

DiJulio does not always mix the wet and dry ingredients separately before combining them. She often makes a well in the center of the dry ingredients, adds the wet, then stirs just until the lumps disappear and the wet and dry ingredients are combined. Both methods help prevent over-mixing.

When she finished mixing, Kaplan filled the muffin tin cups about two-thirds full. DiJulio slid the cupcakes into the oven and tested the brownies, which still looked wet. She added five minutes to the timer as Kaplan readied to make the shortbread crusts for the pies.

The recipe was quick - non-hydrogenated, nondairy butter, confectioners' sugar and unbleached, all-purpose flour. Kaplan used a fork to cream the softened butter, sugar and flour together in minutes.

"Do you know about using the bottom of a glass to press it out?" DiJulio asked.

Kaplan didn't. DiJulio took a heavy juice glass and smoothed the crust into the bottoms of two pans.

"How high up the sides do you want this?" Kaplan asked, taking over.

"Whatever you prefer," she said. "I tend to like a thicker crust so I don't have it that high."

The crusts were in the pans, as the cupcakes were finishing and the brownies looked, well, weird. DiJulio tossed the batch and whipped up another. She guessed she added too much liquid, perhaps coffee.

DiJulio pulled out the oats for the cookie recipe as the aromas of cinnamon and chocolate filled the kitchen - three desserts in less than 90 minutes, one dessert to go.

Kaplan quickly blended the oatmeal cookies, using a half cup of oats and a half cup of cranberries in place of nuts.

The timer sounded. The cupcakes and pie crusts were done, the crusts golden brown in the center and along the edges. The cupcake pan went on a cooling rack, as DiJulio slid the other pan of brownies into the oven.

The cooks were beginning their last steps - the mousse for the pie filling, the chocolate-chip dough layer for the brownies, then the ganache.

The mousse required only a few steps: warming soy milk in the microwave for one minute, dumping in vegan chocolate chips, and stirring to melt and combine. Kaplan then spun a box of silken tofu in a food processor until smooth, then added the soy milk mixture, sugar, almond extract and a dose of the pecan praline liqueur. Kap-lan dipped in a finger.

"Amazing," she said.

DiJulio added, "One of my fears of going vegan was giving up whipped cream." Then she discovered silken tofu, which is ideal for salad dressings, sauces and desserts.

DiJulio used an ice cream scoop to create large mounds of oatmeal-cookie dough and flattened each into coaster-sized cookies before putting them in the oven and pulling out the brownies to cool.

While Kaplan stirred together the chocolate-chip dough for the brownie layer, DiJulio made the ganache for the brownies in a matter of seconds: warming organic non-dairy chocolate chips with vegan sour cream and whisking together until smooth.

Kaplan and DiJulio then took the cookie dough and smoothed it on top of the brownies, which were now room temperature. The oatmeal cookies were done and pulled from the oven. Kap-lan then spread ganache over the layer of cookie dough, and DiJulio poured mousse into the pie crusts. It all looked too simple.

"Is this done?" Kaplan said looking at the brownies, the mousse pie, cupcakes and the oatmeal cookies resting on a pan.

DiJulio nodded.

Kaplan: "Yum."

Denise Watson Batts,  (757) 446-2504 denise.batts@pilotonline.com