Difficult Vegan Decisions

vegan cookies are way (4.00 / 5)

too much $$$. and you're right a lot of them have crap. The Bittman tofu chocolate pudding is really good and passed my test. I served it to my daughters chocolate junk food eating girl friends and they loved it. This week end I am going to try vegan chocolate cupcakes with coconut. I will let u know how they turn out

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by: LeeN @ Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 00:23:09 AM UTC

I've never made cookies and (4.00 / 3)

don't know anything about cookie recipes. I love to tinker, though, and I bet you pose a problem that many people would love to solve:

Can I make a little recipe that tastes good, takes only a few ingredients and a few minutes to whip up, and makes only three or four cookies?

Seems like a project that deserves a little research.

By the way, when I changed the way I ate in 1998, it took me about three months of trial and error before I settled into the new routine. One of the things I thought I could get away with was keeping my cookie jar, but eating only one cookie per day. For me, an absolute impossibility. I still have the jar, but swore off cookies. They're evil. I still want to do some research, however.

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by: count @ Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 03:08:22 AM UTC

There's probably a reason for palm oil (4.00 / 3)

My guess is that (1) it's cheap and (2) it works well with the recipe. Not all oils do. Most cookies of my acquaintance call for butter or shortening, and both are IIRC hydrogenated -- that is they are solids at room temperature. He might have needed that same hydrogenation to make the cookies come out right.

I can see how it would be frustrating, though, if you have your heart set on a cookie.

I have succumbed to the Twitter craze. @Omir55

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by: Omir the Storyteller @ Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 03:09:53 AM UTC

I think you're right, but (4.00 / 3)

Since Crisco and Parkay, everybody thinks of shortening as you stated. It wasn't always that way, however. Before WWII, people made perfectly good cookies without either butter or chemically hydrogenated substitutes.

I've never made cookies, but I have made several things from a very old Presto (Swans Down predecessor) book that often calls for shortening. I use oil, and they turn out fine. Don't know how this would work in various cookie recipes, but it works well with hamentashen, for example.

A major reason for the use of a shortening with saturated fatty acids (instead of an oil containing double bonds) is shelf stability. Baked products containing oil would go rancid after a year in the tropics without air conditioning, and this is important for global marketers. For producers and consumers in modern temperate zone America, I really question the need for palm oil in most instances. (You are correct - palm and coconut oils, being from the tropics, are minimally unsaturated.)

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by: count @ Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 03:37:40 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

i have replaced fat w/ applesauce (4.00 / 3)

in homemade cookies. works just fine. dont know about shelf stability though.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 03:41:36 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Shelf life probably not good. (4.00 / 2)

Those dagnabbed 130-lb applesauce gremlins, doncha know.

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by: count @ Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 03:49:01 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Funny you should mention that (4.00 / 2)

We often substitute applesauce for most of the fat and sugar when we make quick breads like zucchini bread. Actually what we have is a recipe called "A-Z Bread" that says to make it with a couple of cups of any of the ingredients listed (and the list goes from apricots to zucchini), so we might make it with poppy seeds and mandarin orange slices one day, bananas and pecans the next.

I don't remember what the substitution ratio is, but it works and tastes pretty good.

I have succumbed to the Twitter craze. @Omir55

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by: Omir the Storyteller @ Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 05:12:43 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Hmmm, I wonder, what is the diff between (4.00 / 2)

palm oil and coconut oil? Perhaps just from different palm nuts?

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by: count @ Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 03:45:17 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Probably (4.00 / 2)

Not all palms are coconut palms. There are date palms, and probably other kinds.

I have succumbed to the Twitter craze. @Omir55

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by: Omir the Storyteller @ Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 05:13:27 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Did you know... (4.00 / 2)

once upon a time, Palmolive products contained a mixture of palm oil and olive oil.

I don't know if either one is in those products today.

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by: count @ Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 06:37:49 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Actually, yeah I did know that. (4.00 / 2)

Today it's probably made from lizard spit, toe fungus, Detroit tap water, maltrodextrin, salt and potrzebie.

I have succumbed to the Twitter craze. @Omir55

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by: Omir the Storyteller @ Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 18:23:19 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Don't forget the most important ingredient! (4.00 / 2)

GMO HFCS!

I wish I knew half what the flock of them know
Of where all the berries and other things grow,
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.
--"Blueberries" by Robert Frost

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by: wide eyed lib @ Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 19:04:37 PM UTC

[ Parent ]