Dessert

Name: Vegan Cheesecake Dip
Prep time: 1 min
Cook time: 2 min
Total time: 3 min
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: vegan yogurt of your choice; Pillsbury Creamy Supreme cream cheese frosting

Vegan Cheesecake Dip (dairy-free, nut-free, coconut-free, cream-cheese-free)

February 14, 2020 // by Meggan Leal// Leave a Comment

Two inexpensive and easy-to-find grocery items combine to perform magic in this simple but tasty twist on cheesecake. Make it tonight to impress all your people!

Ok, so this recipe almost feels sacrilegious. I feel kinda bad for even posting it but 1. it’s freaking delicious and 2. it’s freaking easy and 3. I tried so so hard to get an actual cheesecake recipe up for you guys in time for Valentine’s Day, but I fell hard from my high horse after my first attempt succeeded wildly and then I couldn’t replicate it. SO EXPECT ACTUAL CHEESECAKE SOON. But until then, this should fill the hole in your heart where cheesecake used to be.

Even though this isn’t an actual cheesecake, it tastes exactly like one. And it’s way super easy to customize to be any flavor of cheesecake your heart desires. And?? It’s free of all top eight allergens except for soy (sorry soy-avoiders, but I promise I’ve got one coming out for you shortly!).

But before you go any further… THIS RECIPE IS NOT HEALTHY. If you’re looking for a healthy recipe, just turn back now. Close your eyes and cover your ears and go back to where you came from because this is not it. My goodness, is it not. At all. But it’s a great treat every once in a while and super simple to whip up if you need something at the last minute for some bunch-of-ingredient-avoiders.

SooOooOOoo can I get a drum roll, please?!

Ingredients

That’s it. Lol.

I told you it was simple!! And not healthy. BUT SO GOOD.

1. Pick your favorite vegan yogurt – whatever you like to eat in whatever flavor you want your vegan cheesecake dip to be. Are you nut-free? Well then don’t pick one with nuts, silly. Need to avoid coconut? Don’t get that one. I used soy for mine since soy is in the second ingredient, and I didn’t want to double up on allergens.

2. Pillsbury Creamy Supreme cream cheese frosting. No, you stop it. Don’t get mad at me. I told you this wasn’t healthy!! I warned you. You’re not allowed to get mad at me for this! The readymade frosting tastes like cream cheese and sugar, which are two big ingredients in cheesecake. Badabing badaboom. It comes in both a tub and a pre-filled pastry bag. Either one works.

(Betty Crocker Cream Cheese frosting might also work, but it does have a ‘may contain milk products’ warning on it, and contains ‘natural flavors’ which are always dubious. Use at your own risk)

The yogurt is fermented (which adds cheesy tang) and has probiotics, which is awesome. But the probiotic content doesn’t negate the fact that this is totally not a health food – so stop trying to make that happen! Geeze. Just enjoy it as a treat!

What ingredients are in this frosting??

The only top allergen is soy. It’s certified gluten-free, and while it’s not certified vegan, the plant-based community has overwhelmingly decided that it is free of animal products.

Here’s the ingredient list though – just.. just don’t think it’s gonna be healthy. And don’t try to feed it to your WFPB friends.

I hate those ingredients! Can I just use your cream cheese frosting recipe??

You can give it a shot, as long as everything is cold. You’re not going to be able to warm it up or the frosting will split. It might even split if it’s cold because the yogurt has a lot of moisture and my frosting doesn’t have added emulsifiers. I’m working on a recipe for those of you who can’t use the packaged stuff, though.

I suppose if you really really really really really hate the frosting, you can go ahead and use vegan cream cheese instead. But this recipe is magnificent because it doesn’t use cream cheese! But whatever, do what you want. 😉 You’ll need to add a sweetener of some sort to it though, or it’ll just taste like fruity cream cheese. Which isn’t a bad thing, necessarily. Just ain’t cheesecake.

Wait.. did you say warm it up?

Heck yeah I did. Because the frosting has so many emulsifiers (ingredients that help water and oil become best friends instead of mortal enemies), this can be served as a warm dip! And I absolutely love it warm contrasted with some ice cold fresh fruit. Omnomnom.

You definitely don’t need to serve it warm though, and the warmer it is the thinner the cheesecake dip will actually be. So it’s up to you how you want to serve and eat it. Cold, hot, or room temp. They’re all wonderful.

Can I add anything to it?

For sure! I melted in a little cocoa butter for the pot in the photos, actually! I, believe it or not, don’t really like sweets too much, so I added the cocoa butter to calm the sugar sweetness down without compromising the viscosity/thickness of the dip. Unsweetened chocolate would also be a great choice if you wanted to go the rich chocolate cheesecake route.

Stirring in chopped, freeze dried fruit is a marvelous addition (peaches! omg freeze dried peaches in this.. hnnnggg..).

I stirred some cheesecake crust crumbles for a little bit of crunch and was not disappointed. You could try crushed Oreos or graham crackers and I’m sure it would be mouth-watering, too!

It’s so hard to hold the camera to take pictures with one hand while trying to sprinkle cheesecake crust crumbles INTO the cheesecake dip and not just around it with the other.

Oh, and if you want to add color, just stir it into the yogurt before you mix everything together.

How do I make it?

First step: Open the yogurt.
Next step: Put the yogurt in whatever you want to serve the vegan cheesecake dip in
Next: whisk/stir in spoonfuls of the frosting until you like the texture of the dip. Keep in mind that the more frosting you add, the sweeter it’s going to be.
Finally: stir in any additions you want and serve with whatever vehicles you want to use to get it into your mouth

Note: If you want to serve the dip warm or to add chocolate or cocoa butter, I recommend heating all the ingredients up slowly together in a saucepan before pouring into your serving dish.

What do I dip into this magical vegan cheesecake dip?

I’m not here to tell you how to run your life, but pretty much anything you wanna put in your mouth can get dipped into this cheesecake dip.

Bananas are good, oranges are bomb, and granny smith apples are totally my favorite. Fresh fruit and yogurt! Heck yeah! So healthy!! NO. STOP THAT. IT’S NOT HEALTHY.

If you’re a sugar fiend, try out some marshmallows! Or some graham crackers would be perfection to complete the cheesecake flavor profile. In the picture, I’m dipping one of my gluten free sugar cookies to keep with the whole GF theme.

Just about any fresh fruit, dried fruit, cookies, crackers, spoons, or whatever else you’d love to throw onto a cheesecake would be great in this cheesecake dip. If you dipped an actual slice of cheesecake into this vegan cheesecake dip, that would be epic and I want to see a picture.

Can I turn this into an actual cheesecake?

Please excuse me while I cry.

I totally did. And it was magnificent. I did one part yogurt to two parts frosting and froze it and it was perfect.

And then I could never make it happen again.

Sad, melting disaster of a cheesecake. 😭

If you want to give it a try, you’re more than welcome. Just don’t tell me if it works out because I will just cry more.

And if you don’t want to give it a try and need a tried and true recipe, check out Gretchen’s Vegan Bakery. Cheesecakes are totally her specialty, and she has tons of amazing recipes for them!

How can I make this vegan cheesecake dip healthier?

Please leave me alone so that I can go make it!

Ok! Geeze! Go!!

Pin it for later:

Recipe:

Vegan Cheesecake Dip

Two inexpensive and easy-to-find grocery items combine to perform magic in this simple but tasty twist on cheesecake. Make it tonight to impress all your fans!

Prep Time 1 minute

Cook Time 2 minutes

Total Time 3 minutes

Ingredients

vegan yogurt of your choice
Pillsbury Creamy Supreme cream cheese frosting

Instructions

1. Open the yogurt and the frosting

2. Put the yogurt in whatever you want to serve the vegan cheesecake dip in

3. Whisk/stir in spoonfuls of the frosting until you like the texture of the dip. Keep in mind that the more frosting you add, the sweeter it’s going to be.

4. Stir in any additions you want and serve with whatever vehicles you want to use to get it into your mouth

Notes

If you want to serve the dip warm or to add chocolate or cocoa butter, I recommend heating all the ingredients up slowly together in a saucepan before pouring into your serving dish.

Easiest Vegan Meringue Cookies Ever with Aquafaba

December 23, 2019 // by Meggan Leal// Leave a Comment

Thanks to aquafaba, vegans and other egg-avoiders can now enjoy meringue whenever they want, again. Here, we are making the ever-loved crispy meringue cookies enjoyed by people around the world, but with a twist that makes them easier than even egg-white meringues.

What is Meringue?

Meringue (pronounced murr-ANG, with a soft g like in “sang”) is the product of whipping egg whites (or in our case, the vegan alternative aquafaba, which is the water from cooked or canned beans and other legumes).

Black bean aquafaba pour — Any legume’ll do. Garbanzos are the most commonly used, but any bean will give you whippable aquafaba!

When you whip them at high speed they turn foamy, then fluffy, and then the fluff firms up and can be baked or torched, or folded into batters to make super light and airy bakes.

Meringue has traditionally been used for a plethora of different recipes an applications: Angel food cake is made using it, macarons and macaroons are made with meringue, meringue buttercream and royal icing are both meringue-based sweets. It is used to cover baked Alaska and meringue pie and to make marshmallows. It’s even used to top some types of cocktails!

And then there is the humble meringue cookie.

What is a Meringue Cookie?

The meringue cookie is, at its simplest, dehydrated meringue. The fluff is prepared with sugar and sometimes different flavorings, then dolloped or piped onto a lined baking tray (or dehydrator tray) and baked at a very low temperature until all the moisture evaporates out.

What you’re left with is a crispy, sweet cookie that melts in your mouth in an instant. It’s basically the crunchy version of cotton candy/fairy floss.

They can be enjoyed on their own, made into “pops”, or used to adorn other desserts.

What can I add to it?

Unfortunately, meringue is a very unstable mixture. It won’t hold on its own in raw form without stabilizers like agar agar and xanthan gum, and once it’s baked it needs to be kept absolutely dry or it will absorb any and all moisture in the air and turn into sticky marshmallows (which isn’t normally a bad thing, but when you want crispy cookies it’s not exactly a celebratory occasion).

Beyond that, oil will immediately deflate your meringue if it’s mixed in, or will prevent it from ever fluffing in the first place if introduced at the beginning.

The oil thing is important, because it severely limits us on what we can mix into the aquafaba for meringue: Flavoring oils can deflate it instantly. Even citrus peels have been known to do it because of their high oil content. Cinnamon and turmeric will kill it. Cocoa powder has enough oil that it will also destroy it. Butter and coconut oil are no-gos.

In this same token, you need to make sure that all your utensils and bowls you’re using to make the meringue are free from grease. I do this by wiping everything down with vinegar before I start.

Things you CAN add to your meringue include alcohol-based flavoring like vanilla and almond. You can also add citrus juice. I like to add drink powder like KoolAid or Tang. You can fold in nuts or chocolate chips or even candy cane bits for a minty treat during the holidays.

Just make sure that your additions are not oily/greasy and that they won’t release fats at low baking temperatures.

Feel free to add sprinkles, edible dust, or spray color before they bake (as long as they’re oil/grease-free) for some added pizzazz, as well.

Sprayed with silver before and dusted with gold after dehydrating for New Year’s treats.

You can also drizzle them, dip them, or coat them with chocolate after they’re dehydrated and it will keep the crispness safe.

Cute little Santa hat meringues made by dipping the dried meringue in white chocolate and sprinkles

Cooking vs Dehydrating

There’s a difference between what we are doing here and baking/cooking the meringue. The meringue itself has already been cooked during the bean-making/canning process, so we don’t need to do it again. And if we did, we would melt it.

Cooking our meringue at temperatures higher than 210°F or 99°C will turn them to delicious, sweet, candy soup. The aquafaba will return to liquid form because the sugar melts and it has no structure to hold on to, anymore.

The sugar we add into the aquafaba crystalizes while whipping and gives us the framework for our meringue. The millions of minuscule bubbles formed as we incorporate air hang onto that sugar framework, and it’s what allows the meringue to stand. If you melt the sugar, the whole thing is going to go down with it.

Now, sugar itself doesn’t melt until 337°F/170°C so I’m not talking about the sugar melting from the heat. It melts because your aquafaba starts to boil. Water boils at 212°F/100°C, and our aquafaba is made primarily of water. So it boils, all its bubbles pop, it dissolves the sugar, and you get a puddle instead of crispy cookies.

So that being understood, we want to keep our temperature low and slow, here – under that boiling point of 212°F/100°C. We want to slowly evaporate the moisture out of the cookies rather than cook them.

If your oven doesn’t have a setting that low, you can turn it to the lowest it does have and keep the oven door cracked open. My favorite technique for this is just to stick a wooden or silicone spoon in the door to keep it from closing.

Apart from the oven, an actual dehydrator machine will work beautifully for these guys.

What equipment do I need?

For this recipe, you need a small saucepan and stovetop/burner. A silicone spatula will also be useful.

You’ll need a large mixing bowl, either glass or stainless steel (or the bowl of a stand mixer).

You’ll need a mixer, either a stand mixer with a whisk attachment or a handheld mixer will work. You can use a regular whisk and do this by hand – but I don’t recommend it at all. I’ve done it and it took almost two hours and I was sore for days after.

You need a baking tray. I recommend light colored aluminum, but if all you have is glass or dark colored metal, just turn your temperature down another 10°F.

You need either parchment paper or a silicone mat to line your baking sheet with.

You need a large spoon or ice cream scoop if you want to make rustic-style dollop meringues, or a piping bag and large tip/nozzle if you want to pipe them.

Different ways of piping or scooping your meringue cookies

And you need either an oven or a dehydrator.

What ingredients do I need?

The ingredients here are really simple!

Aquafaba and granulated white sugar.

Everything else is optional.

For the optionals, I’m going to include a quarter teaspoon of something acidic to help the meringue fluff a bit. Acidity strengthens the structure, so you can add vinegar, cream of tartar, or even lemon juice and it’ll help the meringue to be more successful.

Oil-free flavors and colors are also optional. Just remember to forgo cinnamon, cocoa, turmeric, and other ‘strong’ flavors as they can melt your meringue. Vanilla is highly recommended though (if you’re not allergic) because it’ll make your meringue taste like marshmallows!

If your aquafaba is unsalted, you may want to add a pinch of salt to offset the sweetness a little.

The process: how to make the easiest vegan meringue cookies ever

Preheat your oven or dehydrator to the lowest temperature it will go. If it won’t heat lower than 210°F/100°C, keep them oven door ajar.
Line your baking sheets or dehydrator trays with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
Shake your can of beans (or homemade beans) and pour your aquafaba into a small pan (make sure to thoroughly clean the rim of the can first).
Pour half the amount of aquafaba in sugar to the pan (pour the sugar in until it forms a small mountain whose ‘peak’ is slightly above the aquafaba).
Over medium heat, stir the mixture until the sugar has completely dissolved.
Once the sugar has fully dissolved, turn off the heat and pour the aquafaba syrup into your mixing bowl
Add a 1/2 tsp of vinegar or lemon juice, or 1/8 tsp of cream of tartar, or your acid-based drink powder now if you’re using them.
With your mixer with whisk attachment or beaters, whip on medium speed until the mixture is foamy, then add your vanilla.
Turn the mixer up to high until you get stiff peaks. This means that the peaks that form when you lift the whisk don’t bend or fall over, but keep their shape.

Spoon, scoop, or pipe your meringues onto your lined baking sheets in whatever shapes you’d like

Put into your preheated oven or dehydrator and bake/dehydrate for two hours or until the cookies come clean off the baking sheet when cool and are dry all the way through.

How do I store them?

Store your crispy little cookies in an airtight container with either dry rice or silica packets to absorb any humidity. As long as they are kept like this, they will be good indefinitely.

If they happen to get sticky from humidity before you get a chance to put them away, just pop them back into the oven/dehydrator until they dry back out.

Pin it for later:

Pinterest image for Easiest Meringues Ever

Video Tutorial:

Coming soon!

Recipe

Easiest Vegan Meringue Cookies Ever with Aquafaba

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 2 hours

Additional Time 1 hour

Total Time 3 hours 10 minutes

Ingredients

1/4-1/2 c aquafaba, any plain
1/8-1/4c granulated sugar, vegan

Optional

1 tsp alcohol based flavor extract (such as lemon, vanilla, or almond)
Gel or powder food coloring
1/2 tbsp citrus juice for flavor
2-4 tbsp chopped nuts, chocolate, or candy bits
1/4 tsp acidity: vinegar, lemon juice, cream of tartar, etc.

Instructions

Preheat your oven or dehydrator to the lowest temperature it will go. If it won’t heat lower than 210°F/100°C, keep the oven door ajar.
Line your baking sheets or dehydrator trays with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
Shake your can of beans (or homemade beans) and pour your aquafaba into a small pan (make sure to thoroughly clean the rim of the can first).
Pour half the amount of aquafaba in sugar to the pan (pour the sugar in until it forms a small mountain whose 'peak' is slightly above the aquafaba).
Over medium heat, stir the mixture until the sugar has completely dissolved.
Once the sugar has fully dissolved, turn off the heat and pour the aquafaba syrup into your mixing bowl.
Add a 1/2 tsp of vinegar or lemon juice, or 1/8 tsp of cream of tartar, or your acid-based drink powder now if you’re using them.
With your mixer and whisk attachment or beaters, whip on medium speed until the mixture is foamy, then add your vanilla.
Turn the mixer up to high until you get stiff peaks. This means that the peaks that form when you lift the whisk don’t bend or fall over, but keep their shape.
Spoon, scoop, or pipe your meringues onto your lined baking sheets in whatever shapes you’d like.
Put into your preheated oven or dehydrator and bake/dehydrate for two hours or until the cookies come clean off the baking sheet when cool and are dry all the way through.

Notes

Store your crispy little cookies in an airtight container with either dry rice or silica packets to absorb any humidity. As long as they are kept like this, they will be good indefinitely.

If they happen to get sticky from humidity before you get a chance to put them away, just pop them back into the oven/dehydrator until they dry back out.

Vegan Cream Cheese Filling for Danishes

December 3, 2019 // by Meggan Leal// 4 Comments

The dairy-free cream cheese filling you’ve always wanted and needed for your puff pastry creations. Creamy, tangy, just sweet enough, and perfect for pairing with any fruit in all your vegan danishes!

One thing I don’t like to do is make recipes with prepared vegan cream cheese. Why? Well, for starters it’s kinda hard to find where I live. I mean, my local grocery store carries it but it’s always sold out. Always.

Beyond that, I know not everyone has access to it, or if they do they may be allergic to the contents – so I try to create my own with easy-to-find ingredients that can be just-as-easily swapped out depending on your dietary needs.

So today, after being inspired by someone in a Facebook group I’m in who had cherry turnovers last night (you’re a hero, Dara!), as well as all the leftover puff pastry in my freezer, I set out to make some. And then I thought: OH MY GOSH I NEED CREAM CHEESE FILLING.

But what can I make it out of?!

The Ingredients

Creaminess. I had vanilla soy yogurt in my fridge. Choose whatever yogurt best suits your needs allergy-wise.

Tanginess. I learned from my friend Kat over at 86eats.com that sauerkraut makes vegan cheese taste absolutely legit. Sounds weird, but I swear it’s magic. (If you want to make your own vegan cheese, you NEED to check out her recipes!)

Melty browningness. Is that a word? Probably not. Oh well. But you know what I mean. Dairy cream cheese softens and melts in the oven, and browns ever so slightly around the edges when baked – remaining luscious and smooth and creamy inside. Enter tapioca starch. It does these things.

Sweetness (if you want). I didn’t add any extra sugar to mine, but you totally can if you like it on the sweeter side.

The Process

It’s way easier than you’d think!

Empty your single serving of yogurt into a blender if you’ve got one, or a microwave safe bowl/container if you have an immersion blender and add the sauerkraut.

Blend it well! You don’t want sauerkraut chunks in your sweet cream cheese filling, trust me.

Add tapioca starch a half a teaspoon at a time, mixing in well between additions.

If using a blender, empty contents into a microwave safe bowl.

Microwave on high for two minutes, stirring every 30 seconds. Heat activates the starch and will thicken up the mixture and get it stretchy and gloopy and cheesy like.

Add powdered/icing/confectioner’s sugar to taste.

Allow it to cool before adding to your puff pastry so that it doesn’t ruin the lamination in the dough.

Scoop or spoon your vegan cream cheese filling into each danish before baking

How do I use this glorious vegan cream cheese filling??

Immediately!

I scooped it into the centers of my danishes with a small cookie scoop. It was enough for all eight danishes I got out of my package of puff pastry. (You can also use crescent dough or any other dough your heart so desires!)

Then I topped the vegan cream cheese filling with some cherry cake filling – but you can use fresh fruit or pie filling, or even jelly/jam! Or plain ole cream cheese filling would be great, too. 🙂

Bake as directed by your puff pastry, but mine was 400°F for 20 minutes.

You can brush the pastry with aquafaba and sprinkle with course sugar before baking to give it a golden brown, crispy coating if you’d like. I’ll definitely be doing that next time. 🙂

Give them a try drizzled with my vegan royal icing or even some American meringue buttercream!

Enjoy!

I’ll update this post with process photos once I make my next batch, and will publish a full Danish tutorial as well! So keep your eyes out for that.

Pin it!

Yield: 8 danishes worth

Vegan Cream Cheese Filling for Danishes

Prep Time 8 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 28 minutes

Ingredients

1 5.3 oz container of vegan yogurt (150g)
2 tbsp fermented sauerkraut (the refrigerated kind, not in the jar)
3 tsp tapioca starch/flour
Powdered/icing/confectioner's sugar to taste

Instructions

Empty your single serving of yogurt into a blender if you’ve got one, or a microwave safe bowl/container if you have an immersion blender and add the sauerkraut.
Blend.
Add tapioca starch a half a teaspoon at a time, mixing in well between additions.
If using a blender, empty contents into a microwave safe bowl.
Microwave on high for two minutes, stopping and stirring every 30 seconds.
Add powdered/icing/confectioner’s sugar to taste.
Allow it to cool before scooping onto your puff pastry

Notes

Feel free to add vanilla if you’d like (unless you plan to make a savory danish!) 1/2 tsp is plenty.

Make the vegan cream cheese filling as your puff pastry dough defrosts, just before baking.

It must be used immediately.

Easiest Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting (with no cream cheese or nuts)

November 18, 2019 // by Meggan Leal// Leave a Comment

Some desserts demand cream cheese buttercream – like carrot cake, spice cake, or red velvet. The flavor is unmistakable and deeply missed if it’s absent, but getting a dairy-free version that tastes great, has a good texture, and pipes well can be a struggle. Even more difficult is trying to find a vegan cream cheese that’s affordable and free from nuts, soy, or coconut (for those who avoid those) – or finding one at all depending on where you live.

So I made it my mission when I ran my bakery to get the same traditional taste of cream cheese frosting locked down, without the need for nuts or coconuts, as well as not needing commercially available vegan cream cheese since I was a Texas home baker and needed a shelf-stable option.

This is what was born out of that mission.

This is my “easiest” cream cheese buttercream – so what that means is that it comes together easily in just a minutes with no weird ingredients. It’s very similar to my Easiest Vegan Buttercream Ever, but with flavor adjustments to trick the brain into thinking you’re eating a real deal cream cheese icing.

This frosting is thick, stable, and quite sweet. It’s perfect for layering cakes, frosting cakes, piping into cupcakes, or sandwiching cookies. It’s also great used as a dessert dip!

Red velvet macarons with cream cheese buttercream

I do have another cream cheese buttercream recipe that isn’t as “easiest” as this one, but comes out lighter and less sweet with even more authentic dairy taste to it (think of this as cream cheese buttercream 101 and the other is 201 – and I’ve even got a 301 I’ll share later!) – and I’ll publish that soon. But in the mean time, I promise this one is delicious! I’ve had folks drive hundreds of miles to have some carrot cake frosted with it, and always sell out of my red velvet macarons which are sandwiched with it.

Ingredients Overview

The products you choose here will depend on what ingredients you need to avoid – but whichever you choose, you’ll still get delicious “cream cheese” buttercream!

Fat

Choose your fats!

I recommend using a mix of veggie shortening and vegan butter here. Traditional cream cheese frosting is made with a mix of cream cheese and butter – so rather than go full butter and overwhelm the senses with the ‘buttery’ flavor, I like to cut it with more neutral shortening.

Carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, candied carrot roses, and sunflower seed brittle

You can use all shortening if you’d like to avoid butter, or all butter if you’d like to avoid shortening – but the best flavor comes when you do a mix of the two. Please note that if you opt to use all shortening though, you’ll want to add a half a teaspoon of salt.

Acid

Get your tang!

Dairy cream cheese is what gives the traditional cream cheese frosting it’s distinctive tang. It’s because in order to become cream cheese, the milk is infused with bacteria that produces something called lactic acid as it eats the lactose (sugar) in the dairy. Now, lactic acid in and of itself isn’t dairy or a dairy product (the bacteria in lots of different non-dairy products produce it, too) – but it is what gives dairy products its notable tanginess.

Since we aren’t inoculating anything with bacteria here, or letting it ferment to get full of lactic acid goodness, we are going to fake it till we make it! And we are going to fake it with two other acids: citric acid and acetic acid. Sound scary and sciencey?? Well, sciencey yes – but not scary at all! Citric acid is in citrus fruits – and we are getting it from straight lemon juice. And acetic acid? That’s just vinegar. 🙂

Using the mix of these two acid sources will give your tongue the tang it craves without one flavor being strong enough to be really detectable. So we aren’t getting vinegar-tasting frosting, and we aren’t making lemon frosting, either. Instead, we are making perfectly tangy buttercream the brain will just relate to cream cheese.

Sweet

Gimme some sugar – or erythritol

Some of the most common questions I get regarding my buttercream recipes is whether any sugar substitutes can be used. Yes, you can use confectioner’s erythritol (Swerve) in my buttercream recipes and it works great! You might need to adjust the amount to get the right consistency, though – so add a little at a time until you get it as thick as you’d like.

Confectioner’s monkfruit (another sugar substitute which is popular among the keto, paleo, and vegan crowds) is also a thing, but I haven’t had the chance to play with it as of yet. Once I do, or if you do and let me know how it works, I will update here! Please note that advertises that it’s twice as sweet as sugar, though – so it may take some adjusting.

And regarding confectioner’s vs powdered vs icing vs pure vs starch added sugar: all of the above work! I use 10x powdered sugar with corn or tapioca starch added (depending on if I’m using organic or not), but plenty of folks use pure powdered sugar – even homemade – with great results.

Fondant, candy, and chocolate decorations stick to it perfectly.

Vanilla

It is dessert after all!

Vanilla is a mystical creature in the culinary world that pairs wonderfully with literally every other flavor that exists. And we’ve gotten to where if it’s missing from dessert, well, it just doesn’t taste like dessert anymore. And if you skip out on vanilla here, people will notice and they’ll say something is weird – and they’ll blame it on the frosting being dairy-free. But it’ll be because it’s flower-free!

So whether you decide to use pure vanilla, imitation vanilla, a baker’s blend, Mexican or bourbon vanilla, or even homemade – it doesn’t matter – just make sure you use it! As long as it’s not made from beaver butts, you’re good to go.

An Extra Boost

Totally optional

Depending on what ingredients you’re avoiding, you can skip over this entirely – but it helps a lot if you’re trying to sway extra anti-vegan judgmental minds: Commercial cream cheese frosting from a tub.

I KNOW, OK. DONT @ ME. JUST TRUST ME.

It holds up beautifully between cake layers

Both Pillsbury Creamy Supreme and Duncan Hines Creamy Home-Style cream cheese frosting in the tubs are free from animal derived ingredients as far as we can tell. I like to add a few tablespoons into the mix at the end because.. why? Well, these frostings have actual lactic acid added. And with just a small addition, it really boosts the cream cheese icing nostalgia feels when you eat it.

Feel free to skip this if you’re horrified at the idea, or if you’re avoiding soy – but I promise that if you don’t need to avoid it, it really does help!

Specific Products to Use

What to use in case you’re avoiding what

THIS IS JUST A TOOL TO HELP YOU – IT IS NOT DEFINITIVE AND WE REFUSE TO BE HELD LIABLE IF SOMETHING IS INCORRECT

I will try to keep this list updated, but please please please double check all ingredient lists before using if you have a medical condition that is your reason for avoiding these allergens. Companies change formulations all the time – even I check ingredient lists for products every time I buy them, no matter how many times I’ve bought them before or how recently. And please let me know if something here is incorrect and I’ll update it!

These are products I’ve worked with here in the United States, but I’ll also try to add more international products to the list as I get confirmation from reputable sources that they work well. For now, check out my Easiest Vegan Buttercream Ever post for info on how to choose your vegan butter.

Avoiding Soy:

Palm Oil Shortening
Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks
Earth Balance Soy-Free Buttery Sticks
Miyoko’s Cultured Vegan Butter

Avoiding Nuts:

Vegetable Shortening
Palm Oil Shortening
Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks – Except Almond
Earth Balance Baking Sticks

Avoiding Coconut:

Vegetable Shortening
Palm Oil Shortening please note that many people who are allergic to coconut also have issues with palm fruit
Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks
Earth Balance Buttery Sticks

Avoiding Palm Oil:

Miyoko’s Cultured Vegan Butter

Pin It

Video

Coming Soon

Recipe

Yield: 3 cups (enough to frost a 6” double layer cake)

Easiest Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting

The easiest dairy-free, vegan recipe to mimic the taste and texture of traditional cream cheese frosting without breaking the bank or your spirit. Follow recipe post for soy, nut, and coconut free options.

Prep Time 1 minute

Cook Time 29 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Ingredients

1/2 cup vegan butter, room temperature* (one stick) (113g)
1/2 cup vegetable shortening (113g)
4 cups powdered sugar (450g)
1.5 tbsp white vinegar (24ml)
1 tbsp lemon juice (15ml)
1 tsp vanilla extract (5ml)
OPTIONAL: 3 heaping spoons of Pillsbury or Duncan Hines cream cheese frosting - see recipe post for details (DO NOT USE IF AVOIDING SOY)

Instructions

Add butter and shortening to the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or a large mixing bowl if using a hand mixer)
Mix on low/stir until completely incorporated
Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time, mixing on low between each addition until incorporated
Add your vinegar, lemon juice, and vanilla extract
Mix on low until completely incorporated
Use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides and bottom of your bowl
Turn the mixer to medium high and let it run for 15 minutes - or until you taste test and there’s no waxy mouthfeel from the shortening
Add the tub frosting if using, and allow mixer to run on low for ten minutes
Taste test! If it needs more tang, add more vinegar by the half tablespoon until your desired level of tanginess has been achieved.
Adjust the consistency by adding water by the teaspoon to thin, or more powdered sugar by the quarter cup to stiffen until desired consistency is reached

Notes

*if you use all butter, you can skip the fifteen minutes of whipping

*feel free to sift your powdered sugar if it’s very lumpy

*this frosting can be kept covered at room temperature for up to a week, in the fridge for a month, or in the freezer for six months

Allergy-Friendly and Vegan Pastry Recipes:

American Meringue Buttercream (vegan)

October 28, 2019 // by Meggan Leal// 36 Comments

This frosting is quick, it’s easy, it’s no-cook, and just so happens to be vegan. It’s American Buttercream’s less teeth-shatteringly sweet, more refined, and just as perfectly versatile meringue cousin. Dairy-free, egg-free, and nut-free, it’s allergy friendly and you’ll love working with it. Plus, the flavor and texture will have everyone who tastes it in awe.

While American Buttercream may be the quickest and easiest of the buttercreams to make, many people find it to be sickeningly sweet because it’s the sugar that gives it structure and body – and it takes quite a lot. So what could we possibly do to it to make that not the case?

Enter aquafaba.

Tips&Tricks Square — I usually use garbanzo/chickpea aquafaba – but any one will do!

Aquafaba is legume (beans, lentils, soy, peas, etc.) cooking or canning liquid – and it is the vegan egg white replacement for perfect meringues. It can be used to make macarons and top meringue pies, and even perfect little meringue cookies and royal icing. And it gets treated just like egg whites do in all of the meringue recipes out there.

And there are some amazing recipes by amazing bloggers for vegan meringue buttercreams like this recipe by Gretchen’s Vegan Bakery which is DELICIOUS and AMAZING, but they all involve a pan on the stove and I’m honestly quite lazy and don’t like to dirty extra dishes or turn the stove on unless I absolutely have to. So I had an idea.

Weighing sugar to make syrup. The bane of my existence.

One day, while making my easy vegan buttercream, I wondered how I could lower the sugar amount but still maintain structure within the frosting.. And I’ve made enough aquafaba meringue to know it COULD provide structure, but was worried it might deflate if I added it to a bunch of fat. Fats and oils kill meringue faster than you can blink your eyes, in case you didn’t know. Plus, aquafaba meringue usually deflates over time unless it’s stablized with something like agar agar. If you don’t add a stabilizer, it starts to melt and get weepy, and NO ONE wants a soggy cake due to deflating meringue.

But I decided to give it a chance anyway, and I did it the lazy way; I just cracked open a can of beans and dumped the liquid straight into the buttercream.

AND IT WORKED. WONDERFULLY. PERFECTLY. MIRACULOUSLY.

Smooooooth.

It fluffs up gorgeously, provides a silky texture and beautiful sheen to the buttercream, and takes the place of a whole bunch of sugar so that the frosting is only about half as sweet as what my original American buttercream recipe is.

Even being a meringue buttercream, it’s still stable enough to go between cake layers or macarons and not squish or slide out everywhere.

This cake traveled an hour by car, was unloaded and reloaded multiple times, and sat in 75-80° F heat for over three hours and did great! It was filled and frosted with American meringue buttercream.

It doesn’t deflate or weep, and colors and takes on flavors like a dream. And if you want a denser meringue, you can totally reduce your aquafaba down before adding it (I don’t because I’m happy with the way it is and I don’t want to dirty extra dishes).

If you want to check out some gorgeous cakes that use buttercream employing this method, check out @justsomethingfancy on Instagram – while she doesn’t use my exact recipe (because I’m just publishing it now, lol) she does add reduced aquafaba to her buttercream to make it lighter, fluffier, and less sweet.

Pin It!

Pinterest image featuring cupcakes topped with smooth, white, meringue buttercream

As far as butters go, take a look at my Easiest Vegan Buttercream Ever post to check out which ones work and how to make the ones that don’t bend to your will.

Tutorial Video:

So without further ado….

The Recipe

Yield: Enough to generously fill and frost an 8" cake

American Meringue Buttercream (vegan)

No thermometers, no cooking, no weighing, no timing, no fuss. The easiest meringue buttercream to ever exist - thanks to aquafaba. And it just so happens to be vegan. Smooth, pipeable, delicious, and super simple to make.

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 15 minutes

Ingredients

2 cups (4 sticks, 450g) vegan butter*, room temp
5 cups (550g) powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2ish c (125ml) aquafaba, room temperature**

Instructions

In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream your butter on low speed until lighter in color and smooth, then turn off mixer.
Add all the powdered sugar and mix on low speed until completely incorporated. Turn off mixer.
Add in your vanilla and aquafaba and mix on medium high for five to ten minutes, until your preferred level of fluffiness has been achieved. Keep in mind that the fluffier it gets, the less weight the buttercream will be able to hold. I usually go about five minutes.
Mix on low/stir speed for five minutes to get rid of bubbles.

Notes

* Country Crock plant butter sticks or equivalent. For more on vegan butters and how to make them work, check out my Easiest Vegan Buttercream Ever post (please note that Earth Balance and Miyoko’s are both too soft for this recipe alone. Use 50/50 butter and shortening if you’re unsure if your butter will work)

** I add my aquafaba straight from the can - no reducing. Feel free to reduce yours first if you want, though.

*** The perfect amount of aquafaba to use depends on your climate, your tastes, and your needs. If your buttercream feels too soft, reduce the aquafaba to about 1/3c and/or reduce whipping time. You can also add extra powdered sugar to stiffen it.

Allergy-Friendly and Vegan Pastry Recipes:

Chili Lime American Buttercream (vegan, soy-free)

October 15, 2019 // by Meggan Leal// Leave a Comment

This buttercream not only has an addictive spicy kick, but its tangy sweetness will have you looking for new and creative combinations and vehicles for getting it from bowl to mouth. It’s dairy-free, vegan, soy-free as long as you use the recommended ingredients, and I won’t tell anyone if you accidentally make a double batch.

Best coupled with fruit flavored confections, it uses fresh key lime juice in place of your usual cream or milk as well as the vanilla in American buttercream. I like to add yellow coloring to mine, since I most often pair it with mango smoothie cake for my famous Mangonada Cake and Mangonada Macarons. If you want to avoid dyes, use turmeric to turn it vivid yellow!

For the fruit chili powder, Trechas is my favorite brand (when I lived in Mexico, my host families only used Trechas brand, so that’s all I buy, now). If you’re wanting to avoid sugar or dyes, Tajin is a great choice as well.

And as far as butter goes, I use Country Crock Plant Butter sticks now, and it’s what I recommend. If you don’t have access to it or want to use something else, check out this post that covers vegan butters and how to make them work for your buttercream.

Video Tutorial

My buttercream tutorial on YouTube for the visual learners

Recipe

Yield: 2 cups (enough to frost a two-layer 6” cake)

Vegan Chili Lime Buttercream

The easiest vegan buttercream you’ve ever made - in sabor loco chili-lime! Four ingredients and ten minutes gets you perfectly pipe-able frosting for any confection that needs a spicy-sweet punch of tangy Mexican flavor!

Prep Time 1 minute

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 11 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup room temp high-fat vegan butter* (two sticks)(I prefer Country Crock Plant Butter sticks for best and soy-free results)
3 cups powdered sugar (use Swerve Confectioner’s for a sugar-free version)
2 tbsp + 1 tsp lime juice
1-2 tsp chili lime fruit seasoning
Yellow gel food color

Instructions

Add butter and two cups of powdered sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer equipped with the paddle attachment
Mix on low/stir until completely incorporated
Add the final cup of the powdered sugar and chili lime seasoning, and mix again on low/stir until completely incorporated
Add your lime juice
Mix on low until completely incorporated
Use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides and bottom of your bowl
Mix on low just until the mixture is fully combined and smooth
Adjust the consistency by adding more juice by the teaspoon to thin, or more powdered sugar by the quarter cup to stiffen until desired consistency is reached

Notes

*For more info on vegan butters to use, check out my post at www.cookingoncaffeine.com/easiest-vegan-buttercream-ever

*If you use shortening, whip the mixture for 15 minutes or until it no longer has a greasy/waxy mouthfeel

*if you want the buttercream as silky smooth as possible, turn the mixer on low/stir and let it go for about a half an hour after you’re done mixing it

*for butter without palm oil, give Miyoko’s cultured butter a try

*for butter without soy, use Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks, Earth Balance Soy-Free, or Miyoko’s cultured butter.

*feel free to sift your powdered sugar if it’s very lumpy

*for crusting buttercream, add another one to two tablespoons of liquid, and use powdered sugar to bring back to consistency

Allergy-Friendly and Vegan Pastry Recipes:

Mangonada Cake with Chili Lime Buttercream (vegan, soy-free)

October 15, 2019 // by Meggan Leal// Leave a Comment

This Mangonada Cake was inspired by the classic Mexican street snack! It’s a sweet cake made from natural mango purée with sweet, tangy, and spicy chili lime buttercream, accented with chamoy and adorned with Mexican spicy candy, this cake is addictive in all the right ways! It’s also totally dairy-free, egg-free, and soy-free if you use the recommended products. It can be modified to be gluten-free and no-added-sugar, as well. And it makes darn good cupcakes for those who don’t like to do cakes!

By far, this is my most popular cake flavor sold out of my little vegan cottage bakery in Texas.

Mangonada?

So what is a mangonada? A mangonada (also known as a chamoyada or chamango depending on what part of Mexico you’re in) is frozen mango blended up with ice and served with chamoy sauce (explained below), chili powder, lime juice, and usually a tamarind-covered straw.

There’s just about nothing better on a crazy hot summer day.

The Components

The body of the cake is made with the mango version of my fruit smoothie cake. I use mango-peach Koolaid powder to really up the ante flavor-wise, but you can omit this if you’re wanting to go au natural.

The frosting is my chili-lime version of my easiest vegan buttercream ever. I use fresh squeezed key lime juice as the “liquid” addition as well as in place of the vanilla, and add a teaspoon of Mexican fruit chili seasoning with the powdered sugar. Trechas is my favorite commercial brand (and Tajin is wonderful if you want to avoid added sugar), but feel free to use whatever you prefer or even make your own! (And make sure you try it on your favorite fruit if you never have before!).

I dye frosting bright yellow and/or orange with Americolor lemon yellow and super red gels, or use turmeric for those seeking a dye-free delight.

Apart from the buttercream between each layer, I also add a healthy amount of chamoy. If you’re not Hispanic or haven’t been exposed to a lot of Mexican food, you may not know what that is.. so, what is chamoy?

Chamoy is a glorious sauce made from concentrated fruit (usually plums) with chili and salt, and no mangonada is complete without it. It’s tangy, sweet, spicy, and all round wonderful. It’s used on fruit most of the time, but it gives this cake a wonderful, exotic kick! Its deep maroon color is also beautiful against the brilliant yellow frosting. My favorite is a brand I recently discovered called Joy Chamoy – it’s made just a few miles from where I live and it’s the most flavorful variety I’ve tasted!

If you prefer to order from Amazon, you can grab this variety and it will taste great as well.

I brush it directly on top of each layer of leveled cake – like one would a sugar syrup – before a healthy layer of buttercream and the next cake on top.

The Construction

So this cake is, from the bottom up, mango cake – chamoy – chili lime buttercream – mango cake – chamoy – chili lime buttercream, as many layers as your heart desires. Then I cover the whole cake in the chili lime buttercream, pipe some sort of decoration in the buttercream on top (usually swirls or rosettes), and pour more chamoy all over the cake.

Watch me make it in this quick timelapse:

As the final touch, the cake gets adorned with spicy Mexican candy and another generous sprinkling of the fruit chili.

Just the Cupcakes, Ma’am.

For cupcakes instead of cake, just do the swirl of frosting, chamoy drizzle, chili sprinkle, then the candy on top. I’ve even served them with the chamoy inside a pipette instead of drizzled (for less mess during transport and sale).

You should be able to find the chamoy, fruit chili, and Mexican candies at your local Hispanic grocery or aisle, otherwise click on my links to find them on Amazon.

If you want to avoid the candy on the cake, it can definitely be served without. Try substituting dehydrated mango slices instead! Even better if you can find the chili lime variety!

The cake can be made up to five days before serving, but wait to put the chamoy and candy on until just before the cake is presented, though – as they can melt with the buttercream.

That’s it! It looks complicated, but once you have all the ingredients in order, it comes together easy peasy. And if you’ve ever had the privilege of enjoying a cool mangonada, hopefully this mangonada cake will bring back great memories!

Pin it for later:

Recipe:

Yield: 1 10” or 2 8” or 3 6” cakes or 24 cupcakes

Mangonada Fruit Smoothie Cake

The yummiest mango-flavored cake recipe ever. Made with mango as the first ingredient, it’s super allergy-friendly, oil-free, has a surprisingly delicious spicy kick, and can be made with no added sugar and gluten-free as well.

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 50 minutes

Total Time 1 hour

Ingredients

2.5 cups mango purée (540g)
2 cups sugar (400g)
2 tablespoons ground flax seed
5 tablespoons hot water
———
3.5 cups flour (440g)
2 teaspoons baking SODA (bicarb)
1 packet of Peach Mango Koolaid Powder (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 c chamoy

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 325°F (160°C) and prepare your cake pans (I like to use nonstick spray and a parchment paper circle inside the bottom).
Prepare your flax eggs by mixing the ground flax and hot water in a small bowl or cup (1 tbsp of flax + 2.5 tbsp water = one flax egg - so you’re making two eggs here. Also, using hot water speeds up the process). Set aside.
Add your flour, baking soda, salt, and KoolAid powder to a medium mixing bowl. Sift or whisk if you’d like.
Add your mango purée and sugar to a large mixing bowl.
Add your flax egg to the fruit/sugar once it’s goopy - after about ten minutes.
Pour your dry ingredients into the wet, and fold them together using a silicone spatula until the batter doesn’t have any dry bits. Don’t stir! Fold!
Pour half of the batter equally into your prepared pans.
Drizzle equal parts of chamoy into each pan
Pour the remaining batter equally into each pan
Use a toothpick or knife to swirl the chamoy around
Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. (Cupcakes take about 17 minutes)
Proceed as usual and enjoy your cake!

Notes

*Use cup-for-cup stevia if you'd like to avoid added sugar, and substitute the chamoy with reduced prune juice with cayenne to taste.
*Use a cup-for-cup gluten-free flour replacement if you'd like to avoid gluten

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 148Total Fat: 1gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 8mgSodium: 153mgCarbohydrates: 33gFiber: 1gSugar: 18gProtein: 2g

This nutrition information has been calculated based on the recipe as written and with strawberry purée. These values will change if you alter the recipe.

Yield: 2 cups (enough to frost a two-layer 6” cake)

Vegan Chili Lime Buttercream

Prep Time 1 minute

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 11 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup room temp high-fat vegan butter* (two sticks)(I prefer Country Crock Plant Butter sticks for best and soy-free results)
3 cups powdered sugar (use Swerve Confectioner’s for a sugar-free version)
2 tbsp + 1 tsp lime juice
1-2 tsp chili lime fruit seasoning
Yellow gel food color

Instructions

Add butter and two cups of powdered sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer equipped with the paddle attachment
Mix on low/stir until completely incorporated
Add the final cup of the powdered sugar and chili lime seasoning, and mix again on low/stir until completely incorporated
Add your lime juice
Mix on low until completely incorporated
Use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides and bottom of your bowl
Mix on low just until the mixture is fully combined and smooth
Adjust the consistency by adding more juice by the teaspoon to thin, or more powdered sugar by the quarter cup to stiffen until desired consistency is reached

Notes

*For more info on vegan butters to use, check out my post at www.cookingoncaffeine.com/easiest-vegan-buttercream-ever

*for butter without palm oil, give Miyoko’s cultured butter a try

*for butter without soy, use Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks, Earth Balance Soy-Free, or Miyoko’s cultured butter.

*feel free to sift your powdered sugar if it’s very lumpy

*for crusting buttercream, add another one to two tablespoons of liquid, and use powdered sugar to bring back to consistency

Allergy-Friendly and Vegan Pastry Recipes:

Easiest Vegan Buttercream Ever (Dairy & Soy Free)

October 3, 2019 // by Meggan Leal// 6 Comments

This vegan buttercream is so easy, it should be a crime. Really. The stand mixer does all the work, and in about ten minutes (less if you don’t care about it being super silky smooth) you’ve got delicious, crave-worthy, allergy-friendly, infinitely customizable, perfectly pipe-able frosting to use on all your cakes, macarons, cookies, cinnamon rolls, and other confections.

It’s an American buttercream, but this icing is so good that I’ve sold it by the bucketful and even offered it as 2oz “frosting shots” to a begging and drooling clientele.

It CAN be made with just a hand mixer (if that’s all you’ve got), and it can also be turned into a “crusting buttercream” if you need that for your creation – just see the notes in the recipe.

Yes, it’s a weird photo. I acknowledge that.

Vegan Butter?

Yeah, yeah, I know. “It’s not actually butter because it’s not made from dairy,” say the purists. Well, neither is peanut butter or apple butter, so let’s just go with it here. If it really bothers you *that* much, just imagine I’m calling it margarine.

Now, for this to be the “Easiest Vegan Buttercream Ever” you need a good quality, high fat butter. Most vegan butters are actually mostly water – so when they’re room temperature, they are EXTREMELY soft. The tell tale sign of this is if it calls itself a “spread”. These will not work well in this recipe.

Two good options for this recipe would be Earth Balance sticks and Country Crock Plant Butter (my personal preference). If you have another butter that’s at least 79-80% oil/fat though, it should be fine. Miyoko’s cultured butter should work well based on accounts I’ve read of it, but I’ve never tried it myself as the exclusive fat in a buttercream.

If you’re in Australia, Lis Armstrong of Treat Dreams, which specializes in vegan chocolates, treats, and desserts, advises that Nuttelex is a good choice. “For the oil percentage in Nuttelex it depends if you’re buying retail or food service…” She adds, “Retail sizes available from most grocers like Aldi (best price), Coles, Woolies and Costco (5kg tubs).

Food service comes in a 15kg box with plastic liner. It has a higher fat content of 80% and is used by some commercial bakeries in Sydney to produce vegan croissants.

Even with the food service version, melt is a factor in the warmth, so a little shortening can help, so personal trial and error really pays off.”

What if I can’t find a high-fat butter?

Great question. If you can’t find a vegan butter with a fat content of 79-80% or more, I have had success with Smart Balance (64% fat) for frosting cupcakes. Note that the buttercream will be EXTREMELY soft, and won’t hold up in between cake layers or macarons. But for cupcakes and frosting shots, it’s wonderful.

Another option is to cut your butter with veggie shortening or straight palm oil. I usually use a 50/50 ratio for easy maths’ sake. If you go this route, it won’t be the “easiest” anymore, as it’ll take an extra step and a good chunk of time, but it’ll still come out just as high quality and delicious as the full butter version (yes, I promise).

Don’t want to use shortening? There is another, final option. It’s going to take some time, and you’ll feel like you’re wasting money, but it’s a viable option for those who don’t have vegan shortening options OR high-fat vegan butter available (I’m looking at you, South Africa!) – you’re going to make your own.

You can definitely make your own butter from scratch if you feel like it, but I never do. So what is my alternative route? I cook the water out of my high-water butter and it suddenly turns high-fat.

Put your delicious-but-too-soft butter into a shallow pan and melt it. Let it cook over medium heat until it starts to boil, and let it go until it stops bubbling. You’ll be left with nearly 100% fat that’ll work great in your buttercream! Just pour it (carefully! It’s hot oil!) into a heat-proof container or butter stick molds and pop them into the fridge to solidify, and then proceed as normal.

What about flavors?

The sky is the limit! I add whatever liquid I feel like, up to the two tablespoon per stick limit. Coffee creamer, coffee concentrate, fruit juice, protein shake, citrus juice, chamoy, jellies and jams, and more!

And powders can pop in with ease, too! Freeze dried fruit powders, powdered drink mixes, matcha tea, cocoa powder, instant coffee, protein powder, etc. Just make a paste with them with a tiny bit of liquid before adding so they distribute evenly and don’t cause drying out or texture issues.

Some tangerine zest going into the base buttercream for one of my bakery clients.

And what about food coloring?

For food coloring, I recommend using either gel or powder. You can use liquid, but any liquid you use will affect the consistency of your buttercream at the expense of flavor.

Some of my favorite vegan food coloring options are AmeriColor gels, ProGels, and Artisan Accents gels. Ultimate Baker has an amazing line of powdered colors that are both vegan and all natural, if you prefer the natural route!

Just remember that your colored buttercream will get darker and more vibrant overnight. This is especially important if you’re trying to make a dark color like black, navy, red, or burgundy. Try to make your buttercream a day early, get it to a few shades lighter than what you need, and let it “develop” in a covered container overnight.

The other side of the token though, make sure if you don’t want a dark color to not make your buttercream too far ahead of time! I once had to make a navy blue cake; I let the cake sit overnight and it was black by morning. Oops. If this does happen to you though, you can add in some white buttercream to lighten it a bit (unless it’s already on the cake like mine was).

My beautiful navy blue cake before it darkened.

And how do I store it?

In a bowl with a tight fitting lid or plastic wrap.

It can be kept at room temp for a week, in the fridge for a month, and in the freezer for six months. Just give it a quick stir before you frost your confections.

I’m so ready, but I forgot to take my butter out of the fridge!!

Don’t panic! And don’t microwave! I’ve got you covered:

(If you don’t have a blow torch, you can use a hair dryer!)

Pin it!

Video Tutorial, Extended:

Yield: 2.5 cups (enough to ice a 6” cake)

Easiest Vegan Buttercream Ever

The easiest vegan buttercream you’ve ever made. Four ingredients and ten minutes gets you perfectly pipe-able frosting for any confection that needs icing!

Prep Time 1 minute

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 11 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup room temp high-fat vegan butter* (two sticks) (230g)
4 cups powdered sugar**** (450g)
2 tbsp liquid - any liquid you want (check the post above for suggestions)***** (30ml)
1 tsp vanilla extract (5ml)

Instructions

Add butter and half the powdered sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer equipped with the paddle attachment
Mix on low/stir until completely incorporated
Add the second half of the powdered sugar, and mix again on low/stir until completely incorporated
Add your liquid and vanilla extract
Mix on low until completely incorporated
Use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides and bottom of your bowl
Mix on low just until the mixture is fully combined and smooth
Adjust the consistency by adding more liquid by the teaspoon to thin, or more powdered sugar by the quarter cup to stiffen until desired consistency is reached

Notes

*if you use shortening, whip the mixture for 15 minutes or until it no longer has a greasy/waxy mouthfeel

**if you want the buttercream as silky smooth as possible, turn the mixer on low/stir and let it go for about a half an hour

***for butter without palm oil, give Miyoko’s cultured butter a try

***for butter without soy, use Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks, Earth Balance Soy-Free, or Miyoko’s cultured butter.

****feel free to sift your powdered sugar if it’s very lumpy

*****for crusting buttercream, add another one to two tablespoons of liquid, and use powdered sugar to bring back to consistency

Allergy-Friendly and Vegan Pastry Recipes:

Never miss a post

We promise to never spam you or sell your info.

Vegan Italian Macarons with Aquafaba

March 27, 2019 // by Meggan Leal// 63 Comments

After over a year of trying to perfect the vegan macaron, going through countless recipes and recipe variations, I’ve finally gotten them figured out! And funny enough, it was by jumping off of the very first recipe I had ever tried and making some tweaks.

So first off, I want to thank Jasmine Lukuku over at The Blenderist for figuring her recipe out and sharing it with the world. If you want to check it out, it’s here and it’s wonderful if you’re starting.

Beautiful shells, but lopsided. I needed to figure out how to fix them.

It made some nice macs for me – better than any other published recipe I tried, but they weren’t absolutely perfect. And I need perfect. I want my vegan goodies to be so unbelievably great that even non-vegans and non-allergic people prefer them over the conventional version. So I set out to do that. And this recipe is the result.

If you don’t want to see the step by steps or photos, and don’t care to read my explanations for everything, go ahead and click here to skip down to the recipe card below. Otherwise – buckle up for a wild and crazy ride!

CHAPTER ONE: WHAT IS A MACARON?

The perfect macaron: Beautiful smooth shell with gorgeous ruffled feet that are less than half the height of the shell.

First off, an explanation of what a macaron is and what a macaron isn’t. A macaron is a little cookie made from meringue (traditionally, whipped egg whites and sugar) and almond flour.

There are three varieties of macaron: Italian, French, and Swiss. They are called as such based on what type of meringue is used. Italian meringue adds molten sugar to fluffed egg whites (or in our case, aquafaba fluff). French meringue adds raw sugar into the fluff. And Swiss, the least used method, melts the sugar together with egg whites over a double boiler, and then whips them up together.

No matter the meringue method used, they turn out almost the same – those who don’t make or obsess over macarons would never be able to tell the difference. That said, Italian macarons seem to be the most stable and the easiest to get right for beginners, so that’s where I’m starting in the blog.

Can you tell that these are French macarons? Didn’t think so.

Now, what are they like? I think of the texture as being a bit like a Milky Way candy bar: it has a crisp (but not hard) shell that breaks easily, melts in your mouth, but the whole cookie still has a good bit of chew to it. They are extraordinarily sweet, and the shells can be flavored but usually it’s the filling that gets the flavor and the shells are left to be “plain” sweet almond to compliment the filling.

Macarons also have iconic “feet” – a cute little ruffle along the bottom of the cookie that is formed as steam builds up inside of it during baking, causing it to rise up from the baking tray. The space between the cookie shell and the tray fills in with the raw batter which bubbles from the heat and makes the adorable little frilly feet everyone who makes macarons desperately craves and seeks out in their confections.

I wish I knew whom to credit for this image! If you know, please let me know. It’s genius!

Macarons are not macaroons. Macaroons are also made with meringue, but rather than being mixed with almond flour, macaroon meringue is mixed with shredded coconut. Then they are usually dipped in and/or drizzled with chocolate.

Macarons will self destruct in any manner they see fit. Here are a few examples of my fails.

Macaroons are easy. Macarons are not. Macarons are jerks who don’t like to play nice and you should not feel bad if your first batch does not turn out. Or your second. Or your eleventy sixteenth. That’s just the way this cookie crumbles (or melts, or explodes, or burns, or crystallizes, or implodes, or any other manner of destruction which they might dream up).

I’m hopeful that this guide will help you to succeed right off the bat. But that’s all I can guarantee: that I’m hopeful. I’m going to try to outline my exact process and ingredients, and hopefully it will help you to make beautiful macarons much sooner than a year after you first set out to do it. If not, don’t give up – change up your oven temp, try different brands of ingredients, search the internet for answers. Join my vegan macaron group on Facebook. Feel free to even send me a message to help troubleshoot if they’re really getting to you. We will get you making gorgeous vegan macarons!

My favourites are the ones filled with coffee flavored buttercream!

CHAPTER TWO: OVERVIEW OF INGREDIENTS

Macarons are, at their most basic level, three ingredients: almonds, sugar, and egg whites (aquafaba, in our case). Anything else extra is added to make the process easier and give more consistent results.

My recipe, adapted from that of The Blenderist, consists of almond flour, powdered sugar with tapioca starch added, sugar, garbanzo bean (chickpea) aquafaba, cream of tartar, and/or vinegar. Gel or powder food coloring may also be used.

These are the exact brands I use in case you want to replicate what I do to the T:

• Almond flour: Bob’s Red Mill superfine, blanched [UPDATE: I now use Blue Diamond almond flour, as that’s what Sam’s Club carries. It has worked marvelously!]

• Powdered sugar: H-E-B Organics

• Sugar: Zulka

• Garbanzo beans: Walmart’s Great Value organic

• Cream of Tartar: McCormick

• Vinegar: whatever store brand I have

• Food color: Some of my favorite vegan food coloring options are AmeriColor gels, ProGels, and Artisan Accents gels. Ultimate Baker has an amazing line of powdered colors that are both vegan and all natural, if you prefer the natural route! Make sure you use gels or powders though, not liquid.

As far as the almond flour goes, I have also heard great things about Costco’s Kirkland brand flour. I would not recommend Nature’s Eats brand as it has large pieces and doesn’t pass through the sieve well. ~~I also don’t recommend Blue Diamond brand because it is quite oily and will result in splotchy, fragile macarons.~~ [UPDATE: I now use Blue Diamond and have been having fantastic results!]

For powdered sugar, if you’re not fortunate enough to live in Texas and have an H-E-B nearby, Wholesome 365 has an identical organic powdered sugar with tapioca starch added. If you don’t need a vegan sugar, any powdered sugar should work – whether it has corn starch, tapioca starch, or no starch at all.

The same goes for the granulated sugar; I use Zulka because it is made without bone char. If you’re not concerned about bone char use in your sugar, any granulated sugar should work fine.

For your aquafaba (aquafaba is the cooking liquid from beans – NOT the soaking liquid. It can either be the broth from homemade beans, or be poured from a can of beans) any canned or homemade aquafaba should work. As long as you’ve whipped it up successfully before, consider it a worthy candidate for macarons. I’ve also never noticed a difference in results from salted vs unsalted. I use the Great Value organic garbanzos because they have pop-tops and are easier for me to open.

As far as your cream of tartar and vinegar go, they are acids and help to stabilize the meringue. I don’t think the brand matters at all here, I just grab whatever is easiest to reach and is the cheapest. If you can’t find cream of tartar, then just use vinegar in its place. We will also use the vinegar to wipe out our mixing bowl which will help with the fluffing process.

CHAPTER THREE: OVERVIEW OF SUPPLIES

Check out my Amazon Shop to browse all the ingredients and supplies I actually use and recommend.

First of all, you need an oven. You don’t need a fancy one, but you do need one that can hold a consistent temperature. Make sure you’ve tested the internal temperature with a reliable oven thermometer (here’s one that’s NSF certified in case you need that). Macarons will fail if the temperature is even two degrees one way or another; it needs to be exact and it needs to be consistent. My oven offers both conventional and convection baking. For my macarons, I use the conventional setting – NOT the convection/fan setting. I’m working on figuring out what temp convection needs to be on in order for the macs to turn out, but I haven’t gotten it yet. I will update once I do. The heat from my oven also comes from the bottom coils.

Second, a working stovetop.

Third of all, you need a mixer with a whisk attachment. I recommend having a stand mixer because it’s going to be going for a loooooong while. I have two KitchenAid stand mixers: a smaller tilt-head mixer and a larger Professional Series mixer with a lever to raise and lower the bowl. Unless you’re going to be making a double batch, I highly recommend using the smaller mixer. While it’s possible to use the larger one, the whisk has a harder time reaching the aquafaba to whip it up. If you don’t have a stand mixer, you can totally use a handheld mixer! Just expect to be standing there holding it for a while.

You absolutely need a kitchen scale that weighs grams.

A large metal or glass mixing bowl.

A fine mesh sieve. I use metal, and have never had luck with the plastic ones.

A silicone spatula.

A small, very clean saucepan.

A food thermometer that goes up to at least 400°F. I have a thermometer with a probe that connects to a timer. I can set a target temperature and it will alert me when it reaches it. I got it for about $15 at my local grocery store, and I highly recommend it because you can walk away from the stove and focus on other things without worrying about burning your sugar. A conventional candy thermometer will work just fine, however.

Next, you need piping bags. I love my tipless bags I grab from Amazon, but any piping bags will do. These are the bags I use:

Mseeur 200 Pcs Disposable Cream Pastry Bag

As far as tips go, yes I use them. With my tipless bags. I know it sounds like an oxymoron, but as I said earlier – I want perfect macs, and to get those perfect circles I need to use tips. I use Wilton 10 and 12. These are smaller than most people use but I’ve found the smaller the tip, the fewer bubbles I get in my macarons. If you don’t want to use tips, feel free to snip the bags so you have an opening about 3/8 to 1/2″ wide. If you want to use tips, grab a few here:

Wilton 12 Round Decorating Tip

A tall glass with a wide mouth. This will help you fill your piping bags with batter.

Light colored aluminum cookie sheets or baking pans. I have commercial half sheet pans that I bought at Sam’s Club. You can use any light colored aluminum pans you have, though. I’ve even used upside down cake pans! These are the types of pans I use:

Nordicware Natural Aluminum Commercial Baker’s Half Sheet (2 Pack), Silver

Silicone mats or parchment paper to line your baking pans with. I recommend silicone mats. Parchment paper will cause your macarons to cook into oblong shapes with wrinkled bottoms. They will be just as delicious, but not perfect. You may also have to adjust your cooking time with parchment since the macarons will cook quicker and burn easier. Mats are relatively cheap on Amazon. The ones I use are these:

Macaron Silicone Baking Mat – Set of 2

A cooling rack.

And finally, probably the most important supply: Patience. A lot of it. Sorry I don’t have an Amazon link for that. 😉

CHAPTER FOUR: PREP

1) Reducing your aquafaba:

The first thing you need to do is prep your aquafaba. If you’re using canned beans, give them a quick shake to distribute all the proteins first. Drain the beans and add the liquid to a saucepan. If you’re using homemade, you need at least 225ml. I don’t like to be exact here though, and usually make a big batch so I don’t have to prep aquafaba every time I make macarons. All we are going to do here is reduce our aquafaba by about a third. I eyeball it. It’s totally fine if you do, too. I do it on a low simmer so that it doesn’t boil up and over. That cleanup is not fun.

Also, if your reduced aquafaba isn’t gelatinous, that’s totally fine! It won’t be unless you refrigerate it (which I don’t do before I use it. It just use it!). I refrigerate the leftover aquafaba if I’m going to be making more macs in the next couple of days, otherwise I freeze it.

My reduced aquafaba. I judge by the line around the pan as to when it’s been reduced by about a third.

2) Cleaning your mixing bowl and whisk:

Even the smallest speck of grease or fat of any kind will kill your meringue before it even starts. To prevent this, make sure you wash them really well in hot water with a good lathering dish soap. Dry them with a clean paper towel, and then pour about a teaspoon of vinegar into the bowl. Using your paper towel, wipe the vinegar all over the inside of the bowl and then use the same paper towel to wipe down the tines of your whisk. It’s also a good idea to wipe down your silicone mats with your vinegar, too.

Skipping this step may mean your aquafaba never fluffs up.

3) Having all your supplies at hand:

Once you get started with the recipe, you need everything at arm’s length and ready to go. This isn’t something you can walk away from for long. Make sure all the dishes you’ll need are washed and dry and that you have all the ingredients you’ll be using.

CHAPTER FIVE: MAKE THE MACARONS!

Ingredients:

150g reduced aquafaba
200g granulated sugar
1/4c water
200g powdered sugar
200g almond flour
1/4 tsp cream of tartar OR 1 tsp vinegar

Method:

1) Preheat your oven to 310°F if you’re using silicon mats, 300°F if you’re using parchment paper.

2) Add 75g of reduced aquafaba to your mixer’s bowl along with your cream of tartar or vinegar. Turn the mixer up to medium high speed. You want to get it to soft peaks. That means that when you lift the whisk out of the fluff, it forms little mountains that fall over and wiggle a lot. They remind me of the waves in Japanese art.

75g of reduced aquafaba goes into the mixer bowl. I used 1tsp of vinegar for this batch because I ran out of cream of tartar.

3) While your fluff is fluffing, pour your granulated sugar into your clean saucepan along with 1/4 cup of water and put it over medium low heat. Do not stir. Add your thermometer – making sure the actual thermometer doesn’t touch the bottom of the pan but sits in the middle of your sugar mixture. We want to bring this to 245°F. I set my target temp for 225°F so that I can check my aquafaba fluff to see if it’s at soft peaks yet. If it’s not, I turn the heat down to low under the sugar and kick the mixer speed up by one.

200g of granulated sugar. Make sure the pan is extremely clean or it may burn.

4) While waiting on all of this to happen, measure out your dry ingredients. Use your spatula to push 200g of powdered sugar and 200g of almond flour through your sieve into a large mixing bowl.

200g of powdered sugar. (ok, 201. whatever.)

200g of almond flour.

Mixed together.

4) Once your sugar reaches 245°F, take it to your fluff and slowly pour it in while the mixer is on medium. Don’t worry about the sugar that sticks to the sides of the bowl. Turn the mixer back up to medium high and let it go until the outside of the bowl feels cool to the touch. At this point, the meringue should be glossy and white and it will be ribbony and sticky when you lift the whisk out of it.

5) Pour in the remaining 75g of aquafaba into the dry mix and combine it well. Congratulations, you’ve just made marzipan!

75g of reduced aquafaba added to the dry mix.

We now have almond paste! AKA marzipan!

6) Remove the mixer bowl, and using your spatula move 1/2 of the meringue into your marzipan, being careful not to grab any of the candied sugar on the sides of the bowl. Stir it until it’s mixed well and you don’t see any white meringue or chunks of marzipan.

Mixing the marzipan and the first half of the meringue. I added a few drops of AmeriColor “violet” into this.

7) Now is the part where you need to be careful. The macaronage. Macaronage is the careful folding of the meringue into your almond mixture so that we can knock out just enough air to form a perfect macaron batter.

Add the rest of your meringue into your almond mixture – again, being careful not to grab any of the candy bits on the side of the bowl. Tilt your bowl 3/4 on its side so that the batter slides down from the bottom of the bowl and rests along the side. This way, gravity is going to help us with the folding.

Use your spatula to scrape along from the top of the bowl, around the side, around the bottom, and back up the other side to the top of the the bowl. You should be cleanly picking up the whole mixture and folding it over onto itself. Do this gently until everything is incorporated. The batter should be relatively thick at this point. If you want to add gel color, you can do it now. You can add up to a teaspoon and it shouldn’t affect the macarons.

Now, alternate between smushing the batter along the sides of the bowl and scraping and folding – slowly and gently, until you can lift the batter with the spatula and draw a figure 8 with the batter that falls off. Once you can do this, STOP. Your batter is done. Err on the side of undermixed if you’re not sure.

I can make a figure 8 with my batter falling off the spatula, so this is where I stop mixing. It’s ready to bag!

8) Line a tall glass with your prepared piping bag/tip (just like a bag in a trash can). If using a tip, I like to twist the bag just above the tip and smush the twist down into the tip. This prevents batter from leaking out. Pour your batter into the bag and either twist or tie it closed. There should be enough batter to fill the bag two or three times. Cover what’s left in the bowl so that it doesn’t dry out.

9) Grab your prepped baking pan lined with a silicone mat or parchment (but remember that with parchment the cookies won’t come out as perfect circles).

Holding the piping bag perfectly perpendicular (up and down) to the baking pan, gently squeeze until you’ve made a circle about an inch in diameter. Stop squeezing, and quickly make a small circle with the piping tip as you lift it. This will prevent your macarons from having nipples.

Pipe your next macaron about 2.5″ from your first one. Continue until you’ve filled your tray.

Freshly piped macarons. And my babies in the background.

10) Now comes the fun part! You’re going to slam the tray down on a flat surface to bring all the bubbles up and out of your macs. I like to do it two or three times on one side of the tray, rotate, another two or three times, rotate, so on and so forth until I feel like the bubbles are all gone. I probably hit the tray around 20-30 times. If you have stubborn bubbles, you can pop them with a toothpick, clean sewing needle, or cookie scribe.

11) Once you’re done slamming the tray and popping bubbles, set your tray on a flat surface and wait for the macarons to form a dry skin. This is imperative because without the skin, the macarons will probably explode in the oven. This skin keeps all the steam inside the cookie and allows them to lift and form feet. I like to set mine on the (now cool) stovetop with the exhaust fan running above them.

12) Once you see that the cookies are no longer shiny and you can lightly run your finger along the surface without it sticking to you, set a timer for 20 minutes. Once that goes off, put your cookies into the oven on the lowest rack (if using parchment, you may need to use the middle rack). Set another 20 minute timer (22 if you’re using parchment).

Now sit impatiently outside of your oven, staring into its belly hoping and praying that your macs form feet (around 6-7 minutes is when this should happen) and that they don’t explode. If your oven has hot spots, you may want to rotate your tray at about 12 minutes.

Watching them in the oven without blinking.

At 20 minutes, the feet should appear dry (no longer shiny) and if you give one a gentle poke with your finger, it shouldn’t jiggle.

13) Pull the tray out and set it on a cooling rack. Do not attempt to remove your macarons yet! Wait until they are totally cool, and they should peel right off. If they don’t, pop the tray in the freezer for 3-5 minutes and then they will.

14) Find matching pairs and fill with whatever your heart desires – buttercream and ganache are the most common fillings. I’m also a fan of cookie butter. If you plan on using something a bit more wet like jam or curd, form a barrier on the cookie with some buttercream or chocolate first so that it doesn’t make the macaron soggy. Put into an airtight container and IF YOU CAN, place them into the fridge for at least 24 hours before enjoying. This process is called maturation and it helps to fill hollow spaces in the shell and lets all the flavors mingle and marry and become infinitely yummier.

Finished macarons ready to pop into the fridge for maturation.

If you can’t wait that long, they’re perfectly yummy straight away though.

This recipe makes between 70 and 85 shells depending on how large you pipe them. They can be put into an airtight container and refrigerated up to a week and frozen for up to six months.

Three Hour Video Tutorial:

Join me as I make a batch of macarons, from beginning to end.

Pin it for Later:

5 from 9 votes

Vegan Italian Macarons with Aquafaba

Allergy and vegan-friendly macaron cookies.

Course Dessert

Cuisine Italian

Ingredients

150 g reduced aquafaba see recipe notes above
1/4 c water
200 g granulated sugar
200 g powdered sugar
200 g almond flour
1 tsp vinegar OR
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 310°F.
Add 75g of reduced aquafaba to your mixer’s bowl along with your cream of tartar or vinegar. Turn the mixer up to medium high speed. You want to get it to soft peaks. That means that when you lift the whisk out of the fluff, it forms little mountains that fall over and wiggle a lot. They remind me of the waves in Japanese art.
While your fluff is fluffing, pour your granulated sugar into your clean saucepan along with 1/4 cup of water and put it over medium low heat. Do not stir. Add your thermometer – making sure the actual thermometer doesn’t touch the bottom of the pan but sits in the middle of your sugar mixture. We want to bring this to 245°F. I set my target temp for 225°F so that I can check my aquafaba fluff to see if it’s at soft peaks yet. If it’s not, I turn the heat down to low under the sugar and kick the mixer speed up by one.
While waiting on all of this to happen, measure out your dry ingredients. Use your spatula to push 200g of powdered sugar and 200g of almond flour through your sieve into a large mixing bowl. Give it a good stir with your spatula until they look well combined.
Once your sugar reaches 245°F, take it to your fluff and slowly pour it in while the mixer is on medium. Don’t worry about the sugar that sticks to the sides of the bowl. Turn the mixer back up to medium high and let it go until the outside of the bowl feels cool to the touch. At this point, the meringue should be glossy and white and it will be ribbony and sticky when you lift the whisk out of it.
Pour in the remaining 75g of aquafaba into the dry mix and combine it well.
Remove the mixer bowl, and using your spatula move 1/2 of the meringue into your marzipan, being careful not to grab any of the candied sugar one the sides of the bowl. Stir it until it’s mixed well and you don’t see any white meringue or chunks of marzipan.
Add the rest of your meringue into your almond mixture – again, being careful not to grab any of the candy bits on the side of the bowl. Tilt your bowl 3/4 on its side so that the batter slides down from the bottom of the bowl and rests along the side. This way, gravity is going to help us with the folding.
Use your spatula to scrape along from the top of the bowl, around the side, around the bottom, and back up the other side to the top of the the bowl. You should be cleanly picking up the whole mixture and folding it over onto itself. Do this gently until everything is incorporated. The batter should be relatively thick at this point. If you want to add gel color, you can do it now. You can add up to a teaspoon and it shouldn’t affect the macarons.
Now, alternate between smushing the batter along the sides of the bowl and scraping and folding – slowly and gently, until you can lift the batter with the spatula and draw a figure 8 with the batter that falls off. Once you can do this, STOP. Your batter is done.
Line a tall glass with your prepared piping bag/tip (just like a bag in a trash can). If using a tip, I like to twist the bag just above the tip and smush the twist down into the tip. This prevents batter from leaking out. Pour your batter into the bag and either twist or tie it closed. There should be enough batter to fill the bag two or three times. Cover what’s left in the bowl so that it doesn’t dry out.
Grab your prepped baking pan lined with a silicone mat (or parchment if you haven’t gotten a mat yet, but remember you may have to adjust your baking time and your cookies won’t come out as perfect circles).
Holding the piping bag perfectly perpendicular (up and down) to the baking pan, gently squeeze until you’ve made a circle about an inch in diameter. Stop squeezing, and quickly make a small circle with the piping tip as you lift it. This will prevent your macarons from having nipples.
Pipe your next macaron about 2.5″ from your first one. Continue until you’ve filled your tray.
Slam the tray down on a flat surface to bring all the bubbles up and out of your macs. I like to do it two or three times on one side of the tray, rotate, another two or three times, rotate, so on and so forth until I feel like the bubbles are all gone. I probably hit the tray around 20-30 times. If you have stubborn bubbles, you can pop them with a toothpick, clean sewing needle, or cookie scribe.
Set your tray on a flat surface and wait for the macarons to form a dry skin. This is imperative because without the skin, the macarons will probably explode in the oven. This skin keeps all the steam inside the cookie and allows them to lift and form feet. I like to set mine on the (now cool) stovetop with the exhaust fan running above them.
Once you see that the cookies are no longer shiny and you can lightly run your finger along the surface without it sticking to you, set a timer for 20 minutes. Once that goes off, put your cookies into the oven on the lowest rack (if using parchment, you may need to use the middle rack).
Bake the macarons for 20 minutes. If your oven has hot spots, rotate the tray at around 12 minutes.
After 20 minutes, pull the tray out and set it on a cooling rack. Do not attempt to remove your macarons yet! Wait until they are totally cool, and they should peel right off. If they don’t, pop the tray in the freezer for 3-5 minutes and then they will.
Find matching pairs and fill with whatever your heart desires.
Put into an airtight container and IF YOU CAN, place them into the fridge for at least 24 hours before enjoying.
This recipe makes between 70 and 85 shells depending on how large you pipe them. They can be put into an airtight container and refrigerated up to a week and frozen for up to six months.

Recipe Video

Allergy-Friendly and Vegan Pastry Recipes:

Chocolate Wacky/Crazy Cake (one-bowl, vegan)

December 20, 2018 // by Meggan Leal// 28 Comments

My grandma’s recipe from the depression era, called “whacky”, “wacky”, or “crazy” cake because it’s made with no dairy or eggs (they were not affordable) and still turns out marvelously. It’s an intense chocolate cake that is naturally vegan, super easy to make, and will be your new go-to recipe for decadent desserts!

This recipe was proudly featured in the January/February 2020 issue of Sierra Magazine!

So many people ask me for my chocolate cake recipe, saying that it’s the best chocolate cake they’ve ever tasted – so here you go! It’s adapted from a recipe my grandmother used during the depression (or so I was told) when eggs and milk were scarce. It’s rich and indulgent and no one is ever the wiser that it’s vegan and oh-so-simple to make with oh-so-simple ingredients.

It’s amazing for making show-stopping layer cakes, carved cakes, cake pops or cupcakes.

Once you’ve made your batter, pour it into oiled and parchment-paper-lined pans and bake at 325F (162C) for 35-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. I usually check at 40 minutes by giving the pan a jiggle, and if the batter jiggles as well I check in another ten minutes. If it doesn’t jiggle, I test with a cake tester/toothpick. If that comes out with wet batter, I give it another five minutes before checking again.

Makes a quarter sheet (9×13), or two 8” round cakes, or three 6” round cakes, or 24-30 cupcakes.

Cover it in my easiest vegan buttercream ever or the less sweet American meringue version– or go super chocolatey with my quick and easy vegan ganache!

Once it’s baked, the cake can be stored in the freezer – either frosted or naked – double wrapped in plastic wrap, for up to a month. Triple wrap and put it in a box to leave it in the freezer for up to six months. Otherwise it can be kept covered at room temp for up to a week.

Watch Me Make It!

Pin it for later!

Printable Recipe Card:

Yield: 1 10", 2 8", 3 6" cakes, or 24 cupcakes

One-Bowl Chocolate Whacky Cake (vegan, soy-free, nut-free)

The ultimate chocolate cake. It's rich, moist, delicious with a tender crumb, and perfect for carving and stacking. My grandma gave me this recipe, and said it's what they used during the depression when milk and eggs were not affordable. It's super allergy-friendly and many people say this is the best chocolate cake they've ever had.

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 45 minutes

Total Time 50 minutes

Ingredients

3.5 cups all purpose flour (420g)
2 cups sugar (400g)
2 tsp baking soda (bicarb) (12g)
1/2 cup cocoa powder (dark cocoa is my favorite) (50g)
1 tsp salt (6g)
2 tbsp vinegar (30ml)
2 tsp vanilla extract (10ml)
3/4 cup of melted vegan butter/margarine (you can use oil, see notes below) (175ml)
2 cups hot coffee (475ml)

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 325F (162C)
Prepare your cake pans with nonstick spray and parchment paper circles on the bottom
Whisk together your flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl
Create three deep wells in your dry mix
To the first well, add your vinegar. To the second, add the vanilla. To the third, add the melted butter/oil
Pour your hot coffee over the entire mixture
Gently whisk or fold your batter until it's well combined and no dry bits remain
Divide your batter evenly among your prepared pans
Bake for 45 minutes or until you insert a toothpick into the center of the cake and it comes out clean
Remove your cakes from the oven to a cooling rack. Let it sit in the cake pan for five minutes before turning it out.

Notes

*This can be made with your favourite cup-for-cup gluten-free flour if you want to make a wheat-free version.

*For a no-sugar-added version, use a cup-for-cup Stevia baking blend in place of the granulated sugar.

*Using melted butter is recommended for stacked or carved cakes. Oil is best for cupcakes as it results in a fluffier cake.

*Use your favorite plant milk instead of coffee for a delicious milk-chocolate cake

*For soy-free, use melted Country Crock Plant Butter sticks (avoiding the almond one if you have a nut allergy) or Miyoko’s butter if you’d like to also avoid palm-oil. Or use a non-soy oil instead.

Dessert

Ingredients

What ingredients are in this frosting??

I hate those ingredients! Can I just use your cream cheese frosting recipe??

Wait.. did you say warm it up?

Can I add anything to it?

How do I make it?

What do I dip into this magical vegan cheesecake dip?

Can I turn this into an actual cheesecake?

How can I make this vegan cheesecake dip healthier?

Please leave me alone so that I can go make it!

Pin it for later:

Recipe:

Ingredients

Instructions

Notes

Recommended Products

Allergy-Friendly and Vegan Pastry Recipes:

What is Meringue?

What is a Meringue Cookie?

What can I add to it?

Cooking vs Dehydrating

What equipment do I need?

What ingredients do I need?

The process: how to make the easiest vegan meringue cookies ever

How do I store them?

Pin it for later:

Video Tutorial:

Recipe

Ingredients

Optional

Instructions

Notes

Recommended Products

Allergy-Friendly and Vegan Pastry Recipes:

The Ingredients

The Process

How do I use this glorious vegan cream cheese filling??

Pin it!

Ingredients

Instructions

Notes

Recommended Products

Allergy-Friendly and Vegan Pastry Recipes:

Ingredients Overview

Fat

Acid

Sweet

Vanilla

An Extra Boost

Specific Products to Use

Pin It

Video

Recipe

Ingredients

Instructions

Notes

Allergy-Friendly and Vegan Pastry Recipes:

Pin It!

Tutorial Video:

The Recipe

Ingredients

Instructions

Notes

Allergy-Friendly and Vegan Pastry Recipes:

Video Tutorial

Recipe

Ingredients

Instructions

Notes

Allergy-Friendly and Vegan Pastry Recipes:

Mangonada?

The Components

The Construction

Just the Cupcakes, Ma’am.

Pin it for later:

Recipe:

Ingredients

Instructions