Vegan desserts — There's been a revolution in the world of egg- and dairy-free baking

"People don't want to suffer for their choices," says Lee Busch, founder and owner of Goodbaker, based in Somerville, Mass., which sells vegan baking mixes. "So vegan products have gotten a lot better in terms of taste."

How did it happen?

While eggs and dairy have long been considered baking staples, vegan bakers say that in most recipes both ingredients are easily eliminated, and many new products make that much simpler than a decade or so ago.

"When people were baking cakes with whole-wheat flour and using apple sauce for moisture, you might as well have used them for door stops," says Christina Pirello, host of the vegan public television cooking show "Christina Cooks."

"It's changed a lot. It's finally come out of the fringe because of the products that are available now," she says.

A wide range of oils, margarines and shortenings, and fruit purees can be used for butter, while soy and rice milks can replace cow's milk. And in all cases, the quantity and quality of choices have improved dramatically.

Where once soy milks were grainy and unpleasant (at least to most mainstream tastes), newer non-dairy milks (which now include almond and various grain-based versions) are sweeter, smoother and creamier.

Avoiding eggs can be trickier, but it's not impossible.

Popular substitutions, depending on the recipe, include arrowroot powder, vinegar, ground flaxseed, pureed banana or silken tofu, and commercial egg replacers such as Ener-G, a product made from potato starch and tapioca starch.

"People associate baking with eggs, butter and cow's milk, but it's more accurate to say baked goods need fat, moisture and leavening," says Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, author of "The Joy of Vegan Baking."

"And those are available in plant form," she says.

Limits and results

Nothing is perfect. Even with the advances in vegan baking and ingredients, some egg-dependent recipes — such as angel food cake and meringue — just can't be replicated.

Still, with more people experimenting with more products and ways of substituting for dairy and eggs, the results have sometimes been inspired. It also helps that the focus in much vegan cooking has shifted from ethics to taste.

"My activism is in my products," says Allison Rivers Samson, whose Allison's Gourmet, based in Nevada City, Calif., sells organic vegan fudge, truffles and other treats.

"I don't say 'You should be vegan because of these statistics and these horrible things that are happening to the animals,"' she says. "That's important to me, of course, but I find people can be swayed a lot more by good taste than by horror stories."

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