Tag: yeast

Vegan Baking — Basic Recipes

writ­ten 4/22/24, updat­ed 5/22/24

What

Veg­an Pie Dough

Veg­an Sweet Milk Bread Dough

Vegan Pie Dough

Uses

Any pie: dessert, fruit, meat, ice cream, large, small, open faced, etc

Ingredients

Dough

2 cups All-Pur­pose Flour (+ dust­ing)
2 Tbsp Gran­u­lat­ed Sug­ar
¼ tsp Bak­ing Pow­der
1 stick (8 Tbsp) Veg­an But­ter (cold, small pieces)
2 Tbsp Veg­etable Short­en­ing (cold)
4–6 Tbsp Ice Water

Option­al: ½ tsp Salt

Time and Serving

Time: 20 min­utes prep, 2 hours set

Serv­ing: 1 stan­dard pie or 8 stan­dard hand pies

20 min­utes (dough prep) + 2 hours (refrig­er­a­tion) = 2 hours, 20 min­utes Total

Directions

  • Whisk Flour (2 cups), Sug­ar (2 Tbsp), Salt (option­al ½ tsp), and Bak­ing Pow­der (¼ tsp)
  • Add half of But­ter (4 Tbsp) and all of Short­en­ing (2 Tbsp)
  • Rub until Short­en­ing not detectable
  • Add rest of But­ter (4 Tbsp) and work until pea-sized pieces remain
  • Mix in Ice Water (4 Tbsp) with fork or hands (option­al­ly can do all of this with a few puls­es of a food proces­sor)
  • Grad­u­al­ly add more of Ice Water (1 Tbsp at a time) only until dough sticks when squeezed (should look shag­gy, not super smooth)
  • Turn onto plas­tic wrap
  • Shape into a disk
  • Refrig­er­ate until firm (~2 hours)
  • OPTIONAL: For a more flaky crust READ THIS. Fold the dough in halves, thirds, or quar­ters, push down, then do it again. Refrig­er­ate and let rest for about 30 min­utes, then do it again. Don’t over­do it to the point where the dough is gum­my and forms gluten, but it will make the crust flaki­er.

Pictures

Whisk ingre­di­ents togeth­er
Ice water
First round of but­ter and short­en­ing
Rub until short­en­ing is gone
Pieces most­ly incor­po­rat­ed
Add remain­ing but­ter
Even with­out water, it’s already stick­ing togeth­er
Add water a Tbsp at a time!
Mix it togeth­er
Almost there, but still too crumbly
Look­ing shag­gy, but still not quite
Very close
THERE IT IS
Stick­ing togeth­er well, but not too well com­bined
Lay out a cross pat­tern of plas­tic wrap
Turn it out. Note how rough it is still.
Option­al fold­ing for flak­i­ness
Fold­ed in thirds
Wrap it up and refrig­er­ate it
When ready to use, light­ly flour, and have fun!

Notes

  • Some­times the dough comes togeth­er with more or less water
  • Can use food proces­sor, but I pre­fer by hand to real­ly feel when it comes togeth­er
  • Prac­tice makes per­fect!
  • Cold but­ter is real­ly impor­tant to flak­i­ness, as is rest­ing time
  • Over­work­ing can lead to gum­my, dense dough, so be care­ful
  • Can make it dri­er or wet­ter to your pref­er­ence for what­ev­er you’re mak­ing

Vegan Sweet Milk Bread

Uses

Pull Apart Breads, Dough­nuts, Plain Milk Sweet Bread, Fruit Bread, Bean Paste Loaves, Gar­lic Bread, etc.

Ingredients

4 Cups All-Pur­pose or Bread Flour (give or take)

1 Cup Plant-based Milk (e.g. Oat milk)

1 pack­et or 2¼ tsp Dry Active Yeast

2 tsp + ½ Cup Sug­ar

1 Tbsp Salt

4 Tbsp Veg­an But­ter

Option­al: 2 Large Egg Equiv­a­lent (e.g. egg replac­er), 2 Tbsp Cornstarch/Potato Starch/Tapioca Starch, some Hon­ey

Time

Time: 30 min­utes prep; 1–2 hours, or overnight in the fridge set

Serv­ings: 2 large bread loaves or 36 cup­cake sizes or 24 cup­cake sizes + 1 medi­um round

Directions

Yeast

  • Heat Milk (1 Cup) to about 100–115F (too hot and yeast will die)
  • Pour into stand mix­er bowl
  • Dis­solve Sug­ar (2 tsp) and option­al­ly, Hon­ey
  • Add Active Dry Yeast (2¼ tsp or 1 enve­lope)
  • Light­ly stir
  • Cov­er and let bloom for about 5–10 min­utes (until it foams and smells like yeast)

Dough

  • By now the yeast should have bloomed quite well
  • Melt then add Veg­an But­ter (4 Tbsp)
  • Add Sug­ar (½ Cup for sweet bread, less for less sweet)
  • Add Salt (1Tbsp)
  • Add Egg Replac­er (2 Large Eggs), if using
  • Add Starch (2 Tbsp), if using
  • Incre­men­tal­ly add Flour (~4 Cups) and mix until it starts turn­ing into dough
  • Using the dough hook attach­ment at lev­el 4 on a stand mix­er, fin­ish adding the flour in small incre­ments until the dough comes nice­ly off the sides of the bowl, about 15 min­utes
  • Oth­er­wise, hand knead 20–30 min­utes
  • When it is smooth and tacky, cov­er with plas­tic wrap and/or a dish cloth, and set it in a warm loca­tion to proof for about 1–2 hours
  • Option­al­ly: cov­er and let rise overnight in the refrig­er­a­tor
  • Poke Test: It’s ready when you poke it with your fin­ger and it does­n’t spring back

Pictures

Notes

  • Let­ting rise too fast can take away from the fla­vor. Yeast appar­ent­ly likes 70F — 100F tem­per­a­tures. It is rec­om­mend­ed to stay on the low­er end if you want to get the most fla­vor
  • Good added ingre­di­ents: dried fruits, nuts, sweet bean paste, gar­lic but­ter, etc

Vegan Dried Fruit Milk Sweet Bread

writ­ten 2/18/2024, updat­ed 9/25/2024

What

Sweet bread with dried fruit and nuts, made veg­an, with­out eggs or cow’s milk

Ingredients

Main (amounts also in instruc­tions)

½ Cup + ~4 Cups All-Pur­pose or Bread Flour

1½ Cup Plant-based Milk (e.g. Oat milk)

1Tbsp Corn­starch

~½ Cup Water (boiled)

2¼ tsp or 1 enve­lope Active Dry Yeast

2 tsp + ~½ Cup Sug­ar (Depends on how sweet you want it)

1Tbsp Salt

¼ Cup Veg­an But­ter

Sup­plies: Elec­tric Stand Mix­ture, Mea­sur­ing Cups, Spat­u­la, Plas­tic Wrap, Non-Stick Spray, Loaf Pan/Baking Sheet/other Bread Pans, Cool­ing Rack, Bread Bags

Option­al: Hon­ey, Nuts, Seeds, Cin­na­mon, Red Bean Paste, Fruit, Corn Syrup

Time

Prep (1.5 hours total) + Rest­ing (2 hours total) + Bak­ing (40 min­utes) = ~4.1 hours Total

Serving Size

2 bread loaves

Making

  • Remove veg­an but­ter from refrig­er­a­tor to warm to room tem­per­a­ture

Yeast (~15 min­utes)

  • Heat Milk (1½ Cup) to about 105–115F
  • Pour into stand mix­er bowl
  • Dis­solve Sug­ar (2 tsp) and option­al­ly, Hon­ey
  • Add Active Dry Yeast (2¼ tsp or 1 enve­lope)
  • Light­ly stir
  • Cov­er and let bloom for about 5–10 min­utes (until it foams and smells like yeast)

Flour Paste (aka Tangzhong method) — adds a creamy tex­ture

  • In a mix­ing bowl, com­bine Flour (½ Cup) and Corn­starch (1Tbsp) with Boil­ing Water (add ~½ Cup first then more if need­ed. I used between 2⁄3 Cup and 3⁄4)
  • Whip vig­or­ous­ly until smooth. It will be sticky (I tried a whisk first but it was either too small or I did­n’t add enough water and it got all stuck inside. Switched to a spoon for bet­ter results)

Option­al: Fruits and Nuts *see Notes sec­tion

  • Soak dried fruit in warm water
  • Toast wal­nuts

Dough (~15 min­utes)

  • By now the Yeast should have bloomed quite well
  • Add the Flour Paste and dis­solve with a pad­dle attach­ment at Stir speed
  • Dis­solve Sug­ar (½ Cup for sweet bread, less for less sweet)
  • Add Salt (1Tbsp)
  • Incre­men­tal­ly add Flour (~4 Cups total) until it starts turn­ing into dough
  • Switch to the dough hook, increase speed to lev­el 2, and fin­ish adding the flour (scrape down the sides every so often)
  • When it is well com­bined, but still sticky cov­er and let rest for about 10 min­utes (good time to wash dish­es)

Dough Part 2 (5–10 min­utes)

  • Cut Veg­an But­ter (¼ Cup) into lit­tle cubes
  • Add to mix­ing bowl
  • Run at speed lev­el 2 until well-mixed
  • Dough should come nice­ly off the sides of the bowl. Add small amounts of flour as need­ed
  • When it is smooth and tacky, cov­er

Rise #1 (1 hour)

  • Cov­er and place in a warm place for an hour until it has dou­bled or tripled in size
  • If using fruits and/or nuts, drain the fruits and prep nuts/seeds if you haven’t
  • Pre­pare any oth­er fill­ings or addi­tives

Dough Part 3

Real­ly big now!
Prep sur­face
Divide how you’d like
Spread fruit if using
Shape

Toast­ed wal­nuts
Cran­ber­ries and wal­nuts
Fold up
Roll
Flat­ten and fold again until you’re hap­py
Shape

  • Either turn stand mix­er on to speed lev­el 2 (for 2 min­utes) to remove air, or sim­ply punch it down
  • Pre­pare loaf pans by plac­ing parch­ment paper
  • Light­ly flour work­ing sur­face
  • Turn out dough and decide how you want divide
  • If adding fruits/nuts/paste, flat­ten the dough and add, then fold togeth­er, and roll. When sat­is­fied, place seam side down onto pans
  • If no addi­tions, shape and roll into prop­er shape for pans, remem­ber­ing that bread will rise again and expand when bak­ing

Rest #2 (1 hour)

  • Spray the top of the dough with cook­ing spray to pre­vent plas­tic wrap from stick­ing to the dough lat­er
  • Cov­er and place in a warm loca­tion until dou­bled in size

Bake Prep (5 min­utes)

Wow
These are huge
Syrup and Hon­ey Wash

  • Your pref­er­ence of wash (Option­al)
  • Can be Syrup Wash (1:1 Corn Syrup to Water) or any com­bi­na­tion or ratio of the syrup to water. Can add hon­ey to the ratio
  • I used 2:1 Corn Syrup to Hon­ey, and added a dash of water
  • If adding top­pings to bread, add it
  • Cut vent lines in the top of the loaves
  • Here, I messed up because I did­n’t grease the plas­tic or the dough, so I had to re-shape the loaves and let them rise a lit­tle again
Oh noooo
Welp. Miss­ing some dough here… Time to reshape
This one came out fine for some rea­son

Bake (40 min­utes)

  • Pre­heat oven to 350 F
  • Uncov­er dough and brush tops with Wash
  • Bake for about 40 min­utes until gold­en
  • Brush with Wash again after remov­ing from oven
  • Let cool before slic­ing!
  • Impor­tant: Make sure to remove any parch­ment paper from under the bread! Oth­er­wise, the bot­tom will remain wet while the rest cools

Notes

  • Dried fruit: (like raisins, cran­ber­ries, blue­ber­ries, etc.) can be fold­ed into the dough, but can soak up mois­ture. To coun­ter­act that, soak them in hot water
  • Nuts: can be chopped and fold­ed in raw but can also be toast­ed to improve fla­vor. Hard­er nuts should be soaked in warm water oth­er­wise they can be too hard after bak­ing
  • Seeds: If top­ping with seeds, do not toast before­hand as they will burn dur­ing bak­ing
  • Paste: Same game­plan as the oth­er add-ins. Pre­pare to your taste, then spread it like you’re but­ter­ing toast, then roll, spread, roll, etc until you’re hap­py

9/22/24: Made both Sweet Red Bean Paste and Dried Fruit bread. Red bean paste from a can. Did filled buns, 1 twist, and 1 loaf of that. Just 1 loaf of dried fruit bread, using dried apri­cots, cher­ries, and cran­ber­ries. Should have cut the apri­cots even small­er (did quar­ters). For the loaf, added some orange extract to the red bean. Might have added too much, but it does give it an inter­est­ing taste. Did not use a glaze and they’re a tad over­done.

Fruit
Red bean