Cookbook Review - Cheers to Vegan Sweets

While I don't bake often, I do enjoy whipping up something sweet and cake-like from time to time. I have plenty of baking cookbooks on my shelves, but couldn't pass up a review copy of Kelly Peloza's new one, Cheers to Vegan Sweets: Drink-Inspired Vegan Desserts: From the Cafe to the Cocktail Lounge, Turn Your Sweet Sips Into Even Better Bites! Talk about a specialty cookbook! Not only are the 125 recipes for cookies, brownies, cupcakes, and cakes inspired by beverages (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic), but they're all vegan.

Vegan, of course, means no butter or eggs. Instead, the recipes call for vegan margarine (like Earth Balance, which is actually very good and far far FAR tastier than any other of those margarine products that taste like fake-butter popcorn topping), and in some cases, coconut oil, both available at Whole Foods and some larger supermarkets. As for egg replacers - there are none, which makes this cookbook accessible for pretty much everyone, since there are few hard-to-find ingredients.

I wanted to try every recipe, well, all of them except for the Kool-Aid cookies, but started with the bourbon banana bread, as I had three very ripe bananas begging to be turned into something. The result was pretty delicious, with strong banana flavor and a hint of bourbon, and the texture was moist and fluffy. Rather than bake it in a large loaf pan for 1 hour, I used three smaller ones that I baked for 35 minutes. They were perfect.

If you're vegan, have vegan friends, or aren't vegan at all, Cheers to Vegan Sweets might be a fun addition to your cookbook shelf. After all, one can certainly substitute real butter for the vegan margarine if they want.

I won't tell.

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Posted on Minxeats.com.