Procedure1 Preheat oven to 350F. Oil and flour cake pans. I used one 8-inch round pan and baked the remaining batter in a muffin tin for cupcakes. Got 6 of them.

2 In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.

3 In a blender/food processor blend together the warm water and EnerG and blend it until it’s frothy. To this add the soy milk and blend it for another 30 seconds and set it aside.

4 In another bowl beat the margarine with an electric mixer until softened. Add sugar and vanilla to the margarine and cream together thoroughly.

5 Add 1/2 of the soy milk mixture to the margarine/sugar mixture and beat for a minute.

6 Add 1/2 of the flour to the margarine and beat for a minute.

7 Now add the remaining soy milk mixture and flour mixture alternately and beat together for a minute after each addition.

8 Pour the cake batter into prepared pans.

9 Bake 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

10 Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove from pan to wire cooling rack.

TasteThis cake was good, but I think I felt the presence of soy milk when I ate the cake without the icing. Luckily my husband and others didn’t feel it. So next time I’ll be trying some other non-dairy milk instead. It did have a nice texture, especially the cupcakes. Together with the frosting it tasted no different than any other cake.

My Notes1 I used sweetened soy beverage so I reduced the quantity of sugar to 1 cup and it was perfect because it also got the sweetness from the frosting.

2 For the margarine, I used Fleischman’s No Salt Added soft tub margarine.

3 If you don’t have cake flour it’s ok. Instead use this substitute which is widely used. Place 2 tablespoons of cornstarch in a 1 cup measuring cup and then fill the rest (until the top of the cup) with all purpose flour
and level it off.

Procedure1 Preheat oven to 350F/180C for metal pans and 325F for dark non-stick pans. Line an 8-inch cake pan and a muffin tin with parchment paper and paper liners.

2 In a large bowl blend cake mix, yogurt, milk and oil at low speed until moistened.

3 Beat at medium-high speed for 2 minutes. Scrape bottom and sides of bowl. Continue beating at medium-high speed for 2 minutes. Pour batter into the prepared pans.

4 Bake according to the instructions give in the pack. Mine was done in 25 minutes. The cupcakes even sooner. Cake is one when toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean.

5 Cool in pans on rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pans and cool completely before frosting.

Taste The cake came out very good but I felt that it was very sweet. It had a nice airy texture. Since the cake was very sweet, I reduced the quantity of sugar while preparing the buttercream icing. The cake was perfect together with the icing.

Has my search ended for the best egg free vanilla cake? No. This cake was good, especially very easy to put together and simple procedure. Still, I’m going to keep looking.

Procedure1 Preheat the oven at 375F (190C). Grease with non stick spray or line baking sheets with parchment paper.

2 In a large mixing bowl add peanut butter, margarine and sugars. Beat together well until smooth and creamy.

3 In a blender (I used the small jar of my Magic Bullet), blend together the egg replacer and warm water until it’s frothy.

4 To the creamed sugar mixture add the egg replacer liquid and vanilla. Beat once again until it’s combined well.

5 To this add the barley flour, baking soda and salt and stir well.

6 Add remaining ingredients and mix well.

7 Spoon the batter onto a cookie sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. I took mine out after 11 minutes.

8 Leave the cookies on the sheet for 5 minutes. Then transfer it to a cooling rack for the cookies to cool completely. Transfer the cooled cookies to an airtight container.

Taste These barley flour cookies taste very much like chocolate chip cookies. It was qutie crisp after an hour of baking but became chewy the next day. It still gets a light crunchiness from the Rice Krispies cereal. We didn’t feel any difference in taste due to the use of barley flour. I was surprised that it tasted just like cookies made out of all purpose flour.

I’m not a peanut butter fan, but I used it to just finish it off. So I was very happy because the presence of peanut butter was not at all felt from the 2nd day onwards.

I bought very little amount of carob chips and used it in this recipe instead of chocolate chips to make it completely vegan. When tasted it by itself, I found that there was a slight difference in taste when compared to chocolate chips. I didn’t like it that much. But I literally couldn’t feel any difference (maybe a little or it was just psychological) when I tasted the cookies and my son didn’t find it. The original recipe had called for 1/2 cup of chocolate chips, since I was using carob chips I used only 1/4 cup of it and I used 1/4 cup of dried cranberries. However I’m not sure if I would substitute carob chips for chocolate chips in a chocolate chip cookie recipe. Maybe it would be too much. I think the better bet is to try other dairy free vegan chocolate chips instead.

My Notes1 For the margarine I used Fleischman’s Non Hydrogenated no salt added margarine.

2 The original recipe mentions to use cornflakes. I used Rice Krispies because I had only that in hand.

3 Similarly you could use all nuts, or all chocolate chips or any dried fruits etc. Just be sure to keep the measurements same though.

4 At first I thought the quantity of sugar was more in the recipe with 1/3 cup each of brown sugar and granulated sugar, but it was perfect when we tasted the cookies. Maybe it would have been even sweeter, had I used 1/2 cup of chocolate chips and raisins instead of cranberries.

5 The cookies don’t spread like the usual chocolate chip cookies. So I think if you flatten it with a fork you may get crispier cookies but you would have to adjust the baking time. Also I overlooked the 1 teaspoon of water in the recipe. Maybe if I had added that the cookies would have spread a little bit.

6 I have mentioned this a couple of times, but writing it once again. If using a dark coated non stick pan, stay alert and take the sheet out of the oven 2-3 minutes earlier because the bottoms burn quite quickly. The same thing happened in this recipe too. Even after being careful and lining the cookie sheet with parchment paper the bottom of the cookies went black. Maybe double lining the sheet would help. I’m going to try it the next time.

Procedure1 In a bowl, add the shortening, vanilla and butter flavoring and 2 tablespoons of water. Cream until light and fluffy.

2 Add sugar one cup at a time and beat after each addition, until all the ingredients have been thoroughly mixed together.

3 Blend an additional minute or so, until creamy. This produces 3 cups of stiff consistency icing.

4 For medium consistency, add 1 teaspoon of water to each cup of stiff consistency icing. For thin consistency, add 2 teaspoons of water for each cup of stiff consistency icing.

Taste Even though the name of the icing is Buttercream, we don’t actually use butter. Instead we use solid white shortening. That gives the pure white color (so when you decide to mix colors you can get better shades) and also the correct structure for the designs. To keep the icing at it’s whitest we use the Wilton’s clear Vanilla Extract and no color Butter Flavoring. The usual vanilla extra is in dark brown color and when it’s added it will tint the shortening and the icing will not be in the purest white.

I saw a couple of recipes, where only butter is used or half butter and half shortening is used, but I have tried it only with shortening. As I have mentioned earlier I didn’t want to experiment too much at this initial stage of learning. I read quite a lot of reviews, that some people don’t like the greasy after taste that shortening gives and so they used butter instead. I felt that when the icing is consumed together with the cake you don’t feel the greasiness but you definitely feel it when you eat the icing alone. Also the vessels get very greasy and it’s messy to do the dishes in the sink. Better use the dishwasher. The taste is real good though, just like the bakery ones. I actually was experimenting with white cake recipes. So for the 3 cakes I baked during the course I tried 3 different recipes and felt that the icing really covers up even if the cake is not that good. Can you believe that this frosting is actually vegan?

My Notes1 You could use Butter Flavor All Vegetable Shortening. In that case you can omit the Wilton’s Butter Flavoring. I couldn’t find butter flavored shortening so I had to use the usual one and hence I added 1 teaspoon of butter flavoring. If using the extra teaspoon of butter flavoring, go slow while adding the water. Also look for trans fat free shortening. I was not able to find it and used the regular one and each serving has 0.3gm trans fat.

2 Icing consistency is key while decorating a cake. But don’t worry if you don’t get it right because fixing it is quite easy. If the icing is very thin add some icing sugar until yo get the required stiffness. If it’s too stiff add water (drop by drop) to dilute it.

3 Milk or water can be used while preparing the frosting but I read elsewhere that using water is better.

4 Icing keeps good for 2 weeks when stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

5 The Wilton cake decorating course book which was supplied to us during the class, has a lot of useful information, tips and tricks organized in a neat manner. You can also find this in their site. The information in the website is spread all over, so I’ll give some important links in the next section.

Other Information Explore Wilton’s website for a lot of information about cake decorating. It’s very extensive. To help beginners I’m putting out a list of useful links here.

1 Wilton Course Details

2 Local Wilton Classes

3 Wilton’s Cake Decorating 101

4 Cake Decorating Accessories

5 Golda’s Kitchen
(An excellent retail and on-line baking/cake decorating supplies store based in Canada. They ship overseas too.)

6 Bulk Barn (Another amazing store in Canada with tons of cake decorating supplies and some locations offer the Wilton Classes too. You can usually find this store in big malls.)

7 Baking 911(Has extensive details on decorating cakes, cookies and more, with lot of tips and tricks)

8 Michael’s 40% off coupon (If you live in Canada, check this out. You can print this coupon and take it to the store and get 40% off on any one item. It’s really a huge money saver when you are buying a big ticket item like a professional cake decorating tool set. I got a $200 dollar set for $100 because they had a 50% off special that week.

Cookies

Quick Breads

Yeast Breads

Others

Winner

Procedure1 Preheat the oven to 350F. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.

1 Pulse the oats in a food processor until it resembles coarse flour. To this also add the whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt and process until combined. Transfer this mix to a large mixing bowl.

2 Put the drained and rinsed beans in the food processor and pulse until smoothly pureed. You may add 2-3 tablespoons of water to make it easier. Add the butter/margarine and process until well blended.

3 Now add the brown sugar, applesauce and vanilla and pulse until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl.

4 Pour the bean mixture into the oat mixture and stir using a spatula. Add the peanut butter chips/chocolate chips, raisins/dried cranberries, nuts and flax seed meal and stir until blended.

5 Drop by large spoonfuls of dough onto the prepared cookie sheets. Flatten each one a little with your hand. Have a bowl of water nearby to dampen your palms, so that flattening the cookies will be easy.

6 Bake for 14-16 minutes, until pale around the edges but still soft in the middle. The cookies baked in a dark coated cookie sheet started browning after 14 minutes itself but the pale coated cookie sheet was done after 16 minutes.

7 Place the the cookie sheets on individual wire racks. Let it cool for 5 minutes. Transfer the cookies to the cooling rack after that.

Taste These cookies tasted very much like the Fiber One Cereal breakfast cookies I have baked earlier. These are very soft cookies, more like a muffin. The presence of whole grain flours like whole wheat pastry flour and oat flour did not affect the taste at all. You cannot detect the navy beans too. It’s not very sweet also. If “healthy” tastes so good, I’m ready to eat healthy always. My son takes it to school as a treat after having his lunch and he likes it so much.

My Notes1 You can use all purpose flour instead of whole wheat pastry flour, white beans instead of navy beans, butter or margarine, chocolate chips instead of peanut butter chips, raisins, pecans instead of walnuts.

2 For chocolate flavored cookies use 1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder instead of the flour.

3 Updated: I stored these cookies in a cookie jar over the counter and it became very soft. This is okay if you are going to consume it within 2-3 days. The longer it stays on the counter the softer it gets. Recently I borrowed Moosewood Restaurant Low Fat Favorites from the library and found a tip for storing low-fat cookies. It says that the best way to store low-fat cookies is in layers separated by wax paper or plastic wrap in an airtight container in the freezer. Defrost at room temperature for about 20 minutes before serving. But I think storing in the refrigerator should be fine because it gives instant gratification

TasteI’m not a fan of peanut butter. So far I have tasted only peanut butter cookies and nothing else baked using it. So I was not sure if I would like these peanut butter muffins. Surprisingly enough the flavor of peanut butter was not dominating. It had the perfect blend of chocolate and peanut butter. The sweetness was right for us not as sweet as the store bought muffins. So If you prefer it sweeter add some chocolate chips or increase the quantity of sugar to 1 cup. Since I was making a vegan version I did not add chocolate chips but I don’t regret it at all.

My Notes1 Use dairy/non dairy milk of your choice.

2 As mentioned in the Procedure, either adjust the oven temperature or the baking time to get perfect muffins.

Procedure1 Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter two cookie sheets. I used one extra large cookie sheet I recently purchased from Walmart. It was a dark coated non stick pan. Usually cookies baked on such dark coated sheets turn brown very quickly, so I lined it with parchment paper and then greased it with cooking spray.

2 In a large bowl sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Stir in the coconut and oats.

3 Melt the butter with the sugar and honey in a small saucepan over medium heat. Remove it from the stove and let it cool for 2 minutes.

4 Pour the melted butter mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well with a spatula.

5 Roll into balls the size of walnuts and place 1 inch apart on the baking sheet and flatten it slightly with a fork.

6 Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown. If using 2 cookie sheets, shift racks halfway through the baking to ensure even browning. Mine turned golden brown after 13 minutes itself. I think it’s because of the dark coated cookie sheet.

7 Let the cookies cool on the sheets until they firm slightly. Then using a spatula carefully lift the cookies and transfer it to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Taste These coconut cookies were very sweet. Initially it was crisp around the edges and chewy in the center. After 2-3 days, it started getting soft around the edges too. It also smells very buttery when consumed immediately. We did like the taste and I will make it again but will definitely do something to reduce the sweetness. My son liked it very much, but my husband did not like it in the beginning. He started liking it after 4 days when it was more chewy.

My Notes1 The recipe did not mention whether to use sweetened or unsweetened coconut. I had the sweetened one, so I used it. I think if I had used the unsweetened variety the sweetness of the cookies would have been perfect for us.

2 Light corn syrup was mentioned in the recipe. I had that in hand, but I anticipated that some of you might ask what can be substituted for it. So I used honey. I think either omitting this or reducing the quantity of sugar to 1/2 cup will also work if you want less sweeter cookies.

3 These coconut cookies spread a lot, so be sure to leave enough space while placing the dough on the baking sheets.

Procedure1 Preheat oven to 325F/160C. Line a 13×9 inch pan with aluminum foil and grease it well with cooking spray.

2 In a large bowl mix together oats, cranberries, seeds, nuts and chocolate chips.

3 Add condensed milk and mix thoroughly. Also stir in the oil and applesauce until blended.

4 Spread evenly in prepared pan. Use a spatula to smoothen it. If you feel that the oats sticks to the spatula, grease it with cooking spray and smooth it out.

5 Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes or until top is lightly browned. I felt mine was not done after 25 minutes so gave it another 6 minutes. By then it had browned a little.

6 Place the pan on a rack to cool slightly, then carefully lift the foil and place it on the wire rack. When it is cool completely cut it into bars. You can either go for the usual rectangular shaped bars (like the store bought ones) or squares. I cut them into squares to cut the calorie intake. Dipping the knife in hot water will enable easy cutting.

Taste As per the original recipe these bars were supposed to be crispy because it used 1/2 cup melted butter/margarine. Since I had used applesauce (to sub for 1/2 the fat and little condensed milk) the bars were chewy, which we all liked very much. My son loves it very much and takes it for lunch everyday (for dessert). It has the perfect blend of sweetness from the condensed milk and chocolate chips, tanginess from the dried cranberries and little salt from the sunflower seeds.

This recipe is a good basic recipe where you can play with the combination of nuts, seeds and dried fruits of your choice.

My Notes1 The original recipe used raisins, but I went with dried cranberries because I felt the sourness from it will balance the overall sweetness of the bars. You could try chopped apricots too.

2 The other change I made was using slivered almonds instead of chopped peanuts. Again here too you can use the nuts of your choice.

3 The recipe had called for 1 can condensed milk (14oz/398ml). Since I live in Canada now, I found that the Eagle Brand condensed milk I get here was only 300 ml. So I used 1/2 cup of unsweetened applesauce to make good the difference. Also it required 1/2 cup of melted butter/margarine. I decided to use 1/4 cup of canola oil and 1/4 cup of applesauce instead. After measuring 1/4 cup applesauce I found that I had only another 1/4 cup left in the jar, so I stirred in that too. So totally 1 cup unsweetened applesauce.

I think this is the reason the bars took extra time while baking and also for the chewiness. So adjust the baking time according to the ingredients you use.

4 In recipes like these (bars) and few other recipes where chocolate chips is used in large quantity, I replace it with 1/2 the quantity of mini chips. So I used 1/2 cup of mini chips instead of the 1 cup of regular chips mentioned in the original recipe.