This week for Flour Friday we attempted our very first vegan bake. Well…mostly vegan. Back in October our household decided to change our diet. 5 days vegetarian, 1 day vegan, and 1 day is a meat allowed day, because my husband grew up in an extremely meat and potatoes household and it would be better to limit his meat intake initially and kind of wean him off rather than force him to go cold-turkey as it were. Between October and now though I have not attempted any vegan bakes. I have a vegan cookbook that I’ve tried several recipes out of and… I have NUMEROUS issues with this cookbook; but that’s a whole story for a different post. So, all of that said, I was wary to try this particular bake but I had all of the ingredients on hand so I figure it’s worth a shot. No matter what happens I’d get an article out of it, LOL.
I made Pecan Coconut Chocolate Chip Bars. I say MOSTLY vegan bake because the recipe calls for chocolate chips and I didn’t have any vegan chocolate on hand. After months of doing things like full puff pastry and using lots and lots of butter and eggs for bakes, it was different to do a bake that involves absolutely none of those things. My worries about this bake mostly pushed to the side, I did the bake and am actually pleasantly surprised. This was my first time using coconut oil. The batter was quite thick and a little difficult to evenly spread in the pan and it took longer to bake than the recipe stated. I wasn’t 100% sure they would set-up well when I took them out. In the end they are a bit crumbly, but after a day they crumbled just a little bit less and gained a bit more of a chew, much like brownies sometimes do.
The bars actually turned out pretty good. Yay!! They must be good – cause they’re already gone!!! They did not last long at all. While I did give a couple away, and ate two myself, but my husband demolished them. We’ll definitely tick this one as a success!
Being new to the world of vegan bakes, I’d love to hear from any of you that have more experience. What are some of your tips and best practices when it comes to baking for vegans? Post in the comments below! 🙂 Cheers!
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