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Product DescriptionWhether you want to bake dairy- and egg-free for health, ethical, or environmental reasons, The Joy of Vegan Baking lets you have your cake and eat it, too! Featuring 150 familiar favorites — from cakes, cookies, and crepes to pies, puddings, and pastries — this book will show you just how easy, convenient, and delectable baking without eggs and dairy can be. A seasoned cooking instructor and self-described “joyful vegan,” author Colleen Patrick-Goudreau pu. . . More >>
The Joy of Vegan Baking: The Compassionate Cooks’ Traditional Treats and Sinful Sweets
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I could hardly wait for this book to arrive. When it finally did, I couldn’t wait to open it up and look inside. It was then that I was so disappointed! It is a “vegan baking” book, right? I expected the ingredients to use good things in them but instead they call for “sugar”. Yuck!
Rating: 1 / 5
To the author: It’s billed as a cookbook. I don’t think the author has anywhere near enough first hand knowledge of ALL farms to say that everyone who eats chicken or goes deer hunting is going to burn in hell for it. What are we saying? Some chicken screams to the others, “My God, they’ve just murdered Gertrude. Don’t let the chicks see her like that. ” I sense a PETA member. There’s a huge difference in having a few chickens or pigs or 20 cows in a backyard and a factory farm operation of 100s or 1000s. That’s MY speech.
Other than trainwreck of an intro, the book is masterfully organized and presented. She definitely insists on having everything a certain way, and worked very hard at having information needed to bake with maximum ease. I like it when a list of pantry items is given, units of measure, and common utensils/kitchen tools. It’s interesting to see what each author keeps on hand and it’s a fast way to get a beginner up and running. The core truth of the intro is that Americans have gotten into the habit of eating a very limited variety, mostly the same thing over and over. Much of that comes from the increased popularity of prepared foods and the convenience of eating out. I like the suggestions and specif brand names, so you can go into a store and ask for it. The nut milks, almond milk sounds like it must be good. The cashew cream sounds good.
Most of the palates are out of order. I know mine was. That’s my main reason for cutting out factory ingredients, including dairy, meat and eggs. It the only way to really know what you are eating.
I don’t bake enough yet to know, but I wouldn’t think it’d be too hard to substitute honey, organic cane sugar, or suganat for refined sugar. All you’re after is the sweetness. I do not know if that would affect the baking process. Precise measure and heat are the key, for me, maybe humidity too. I can think of worse ways to spend time to testing cookies and sweets for sweetness or proper baking.
The flour issue can be resolved with organic flour. So, I don’t get the complaints that this is just a cookbook with substitutes for animal products, what else is vegan baking? Heidi Swanson might have some more thoughts in the way of alternative sweetners.
The Pine Nut Anise cookies are probably really good. I’m not sure if some reviewers even have the book.
It’s a good book, after the 7+ page lecture. If you want to learn ways to get around animal products and control what goes into your body, it’s good. She did a good job setting it all up for beginners and giving the more experienced a gander at how she sets up, suggested specific brands and giving the ones she liked the best. As hard of a time as I gave her about the sermon, if she says something is really good, I trust her. She’s probably an ESFJ Myers Brigg personality. The presentation is almost perfect. She certainly writes well. I’ll probably buy her cookbook when it comes out.
Rating: 4 / 5
This cookbook is useful to me in several ways, but the constant drum beat of egg replacer and vegan butter just drowns out everything for me. I must admit I was sorely disappointed. And what’s up with all that “all purpose flour”?? Looks more like a capitalistic venture than a truly vegan cookbook. Why cannot we have a cookbook that uses wholewheat pastry flour for cookies (for instance), for heaven’s sake? I guess this was written for people just jumping onto the health bandwagon via the cookie department, but it was not that great for me. I have to re-create any recipe by figuring out how to avoid all those “1/2 cups of vegan butter” and using whole grains–what a drag. I do use Earth Balance, but not by the cupful! Puh-leeze!!
Rating: 3 / 5
I’ve made a couple of recipes out of this book and each and every one was a disappointment– they weren’t flavorful and the textures were terribly spongey/rubbery. These recipes make new vegans feel doomed that they’ll forever be eating flat, dense cakes. Not true though! The Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World cookbook is awesome and makes perfect, flavorful cakes. I wouldn’t suggest buying this book at all, because as I mentioned, there are better books out there!
Rating: 2 / 5
This book is good for standard recipes that are veganized. Like others have said, it’s not too tough to substitute Ener-g egg replacer and Earth Balance for eggs and butter.
I’ve tried quite a few recipes to serve to my omni friends and family. The chocolate chip cookies are good but nothing impressive. The beverages (smoothies, teas, hot chocolates, etc) are good but again not that creative. The German apple cake was really good, but I had to double the batter to make a decent portion. The lemon cake turned out so moist it seemed greasy. The Mediterranean loaf was bland and didn’t really bake nicely (it turned out pretty tough with a tougher crust).
All in all, some of the recipes have bombed, some have been okay, but none have been extraordinary. And you could have figured out most of them from standard easy vegan conversions.
Rating: 3 / 5