Disaster #1- Vegan Chiffon Cake
This was an interesting experiment, and I honestly expected it to crash and burn into the trash. I very well knew that at the moment there is no such thing as a vegan chiffon/angel food cake because the eggs make up so much of what makes it work.
Original plan: Replace the yolks with Flax seeds and the whites with Ener-G in my favorite (non vegan) chiffon cake recipe. If you don't know what a chiffon cake is, it is half way between an angel food cake and a standard (shortening) cake. You use an angel food cake pan that separates into two pieces for easy removal of the cake, but it also has feet on the top because angel food cakes and chiffon cakes need to be turned upside down for the eggs to keep their structure until cool, otherwise the whole cake would collapse. I was so excited when I pulled the cake out of the oven and it hadn't fallen, so I turned it upside down (like I knew to do). Obviously from the above pictures, that it did not work! The top pic is the thin layer that stuck to the pan, and the 2nd pic is the entire cake after I scooped it off of the counter top and put it on the cooling rack.
On the plus side it tasted great, minus the fact that it was gummy from all the flax seed. By the morning most of it was gone because everyone kept snitching pieces! :D So I'm thinking of altering the recipe to see if I can get it to work as cupcakes because they are good enough to be worth redoing. Overall, this one still makes me laugh.
Disaster #2- Vegan Meringue
This actually worked until I added the sugar to the Ener-G whipped "egg whites" and then it just became soup. I added a few more things (like cooked agar & water) attempting to salvage it, but to no avail. Once it solidified it was a disgusting mess.
I do have one or two ideas on things I could use the successful part of the experiment for, but only more testing will tell.
(Partial) Disaster #3- Agar Jell dessert with Kool-Aid!
This is harder (for me) than it had originally seemed. It went from not working at all because I think the vitamin C in the grape Kool-Aid strangled the agar, to being so rubbery (after more agar) that I had to mash it apart with a potato masher before I could re-melt it and try again. Once I finally got it close and the flavor was really lacking. So back into the pot it went and with more agar and some 100% grape juice added it was finally close enough to be used as jelly. Since I do not have a canner at the moment I opted to put all 8-10 cups of 'agar jelly' into empty jelly jars and keep them in the freezer.
After taking out the first jar and letting it thaw I realized that it was separating, with tiny lakes sitting on top. So I microwaved the jar until it was liquid again and let it firm up in the fridge. It worked alright, but is softer than it was when I had put it into the freezer.
It's been an educational experience with agar, but next time I think I'll just get some pectin and make jelly the traditional way and let someone else figure out agar Jell-oh.
Disaster #4- Baked Yeast Doughnuts
The recipe I had been working from is one I had done once before, but I still used eggs then. I think this time there was a combination between the recipe just using too much salt and I didn't let them raise enough, but they came out like dinner rolls. This is one I will be working on, but I'm frustrated that it was such a dismal failure, although an edible one.
Note to Self: Who Heart Rolls!
Conclusion:
I'm just starting to learn how to make vegan cooking work, but I have a long way to go. I have a lot of fun trying to figure out how all this food science works, what fails and what is worth making again and again.
I love all the other vegan blogs and all the super amazing stuff they have within, but I'm often intimidated but what at least looks like super fancy foods. I'm still a small town girl at heart and I like simple and easy food. And hey, this is only the beginning for me, who knows what might pop up next!
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