Amy's Perfect Vegan Carrot Cake

Recipe Plus Information on Vegan Baking Substitutes

I love baking vegan cakes! It is quite simple to make your favorite cake vegan and organic by swapping out a few ingredients. When converting traditional cakes into vegan cakes you must replace all dairy ingredients with substitutes. There are many alternatives available and these changes in ingredients may alter the original cooking time and temperature. The finished product may differ in taste and texture when made vegan, but in my own opinion will be equally delicious and much healthier.

Vegan Baking Substitutes:

Milk: Soy milk, rice milk, coconut milk, and almond milk make great baking alternatives. When making something sweet I usually use Silk's vanilla flavor soy milk. Not only are Silk's products non-dairy, but organic as well. Also, almond and coconut milks are good to use when making desserts. The ratio of soy milk to cow's milk is 1:1, meaning use the same amount of soy milk that the recipe calls for. Other milks may vary depending on the dish because of the leaving effects that may be required.

Butter: Vegan butter is available in most food markets and, as soy milk, has a ratio of 1:1 with traditional butter. Recipes that call for melted butter can be replaced with oil which would be 1/2 butter: 1/3 oil ratio.

Eggs: This may be the most complex dairy ingredient to alter. I usually use silken tofu as an egg replacement but there are many optional available. Your choice may depend on what the use is. For instance, when replacing eggs when baking, tofu serves as a great binding agent as eggs would. Generally ¼ cup tofu will replace 1 egg. The tofu should be pressed and drained before used as an ingredient in baking. Also, fruits can be used as egg replacements. Pureed bananas are one of my favorite substitutes, and when baking around the holidays I use squash or pumpkin.