Tips on Baking Vegan and a blueberry recipe

Vegan Blueberry Muffins

If anyone tells you they like baking vegan, look at their feet because chances are they're standing on a soap box.  :)  No but really, here's the thing.  Eggs make things stick together.  Milk makes things moist, and butter makes things.... taste really crazy good.  That being said, I grew up in a family with a ton of food allergies where in order to have ice cream for dessert, we had to have regular ice cream; soy dream ice cream for the brother allergic to dairy; and rice dream ice cream for the sister allergic to dairy AND soy......and eggs, wheat, nuts and legumes, shellfish, food coloring (don't worry only blue #6 and red #5 so as long as we read every label of every peice of candy, she was okay), and if that weren't enough, CHICKEN (for crying out loud).  My mom had a cookbook called, "My kid is allergic to everything" and it was barely an exaggeration.   Everything I tried to bake for my sister came out super dry, and had this odd texture of playdough rather than a nice crumbly or fluffy cake.  So, I have a lot of understanding for people who have to cook around food allergies, aversions or personal decisions.  Times have changed, a lot more dairy and egg alternatives are available now than 20 years ago, and I've learned a lot, but baking vegan is still a challenge. This attempt came out of wanting to bake something for work that my boss, who is a vegan, COULD eat and that my non-vegan co-workers would still want to eat.  I did a bunch of research and tried a few new tricks.  Here are some of the life-savers I discovered:

First of all, all I did was tweak this recipe to take out all animal products.  For those vegans who need "vegan sugar" and things like that, I don't care quite enough to understand why normal sugar isn't already vegan.  So for those vegans, this won't work.   Otherwise, I replaced all of the animal products, in this case; milk, butter and eggs, and then added ingredients to make sure the recipe would come out moist and with a fluffy texture.

-coconut milk; amazing and thick.  We used a lot of rice milk growing up but the consistancy is more like water than milk, so it's really not a good milk replacement.  Coconut milk holds moisture well, is super thick and because its full of fat, it tastes really good.  Make sure to get unsweetened coconut milk, or else the sugar measurements will be completely off.
-coconut oil (sense a theme?);
-ground flax seed and water; super weird but amazing egg replacer.  One tablespoon flax meal mixed with five tablespoons water heated over a pan until the mixture becomes jelly-like is the equivalent of one egg.
- Fleishman's Unsalted "Butter" (I think it's actuallly called vegetable spread).  This is actually one I learned as a child when my mom needed an entirely dairy free butter/ margarine solution.  Especially back then there were not a ton of options, but this is still a great butter replacement- and it doesn't taste half bad.

Beyond replacing ingredients cup for cup, I added extra coconut milk and oil in order to make sure the muffins would keep their moisture.  I added a LOT of extra coconut milk, probably a cup more than the recipe called for.  And they came out incredibly moist and delicious.

For those who want the original recipe, non vegan-ized, here it is:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/to-die-for-blueberry-muffins/

Below is the recipe after all of my changes.


"To Die For"  Vegan Blueberry Muffins

Yields 10 muffins

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup coconut oil
• 1 T ground flax seed
• 5 T water
• 1 and 1/3 C coconut milk
• 1 cup fresh blueberries (I used frozen, and they came out great)
• crumb topping:
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup Fleishman's Unsalted Vegetable Spread, cubed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
2. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Melt coconut oil in a microwave safe bowl, add coconut milk.  In a small saucepan combine flax meal and 5 tablespoons water over low heat mixing constantly until mixture becomes "jelly like".  Add flax mixture to the coconut oil and milk and mix until fully incorperated. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
3. To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup dairy-free vegetable spread, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.
4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

Note:  You do not want to overbake these muffins or they will turn out dry.  Watch carefully.