Going vegan does not require cutting desserts out of your life. Your vegan possibilities include cookies, cakes, donuts, pudding, ice cream, brownies and pies. Vegan versions of these delicious treats are widely available at natural food stores and vegan restaurants.
Vegan Dessert Cookbooks
If you want to make vegan desserts yourself, there are many phenomenal vegan dessert cookbooks.
Most vegan cookbooks contain a dessert section. But if you want to get serious, all of these cookbooks are entirely devoted to vegan desserts:
- Vegan Chocolate Treats, by Ciarra Siller
- Modern Vegan Baking, by Gretchen Price
- Vegan Dessert Cookbook, by Ally Lazare
- Sweet + Salty: The Art of Vegan Chocolates, by Lagusta Yearwood
- Chocolate-Covered Katie, by Katie Higgins
- Chloe’s Vegan Desserts, by Chloe Coscarelli
- Pure Artistry: Extraordinary Vegan and Gluten-Free Cakes, by Emily Lael Aumiller
- High Protein Vegan Treats, by Matthews & Schroeck
You can also veganize most existing dessert recipes by making a few simple substitutions. In particular, check out my guide to egg replacers and my list of vegan cooking alternatives, which includes vegan milk, butter, and whipped cream products.
Vegan Baked Desserts
Your vegan dessert possibilities also include oven-baked muffins, cakes, pies, and sweet breads. To try your hand at making these foods yourself, please see my guide to vegan baking.
Whipped cream is the perfect topping for most baked desserts, and it’s also fantastic on ice cream. Several companies make excellent vegan whipped cream. You can also make vegan whipped cream from scratch in minutes using canned coconut cream.
Pastries
Suppose you’ve knocked out some cakes and pies that turned out beautifully, and you’re ready to ramp up the challenge. If you want to seriously step up your vegan baking skills, try your hand at making vegan pastries.
Within the realm of vegan baking, pastries are the category demanding the most sophisticated cooking skills. There are, in fact, pastry chefs who’ve devoted their entire careers to mastering preparation of these desserts. If you already know your way around the kitchen and are looking for a challenge, vegan pastries might be the perfect skill to tackle. Whether we’re talking about croissants or puff pastries or cinnamon rolls, the sorts of dough and the preparation methods used for these sorts of foods are fussier and more prone to failure than your typical cake or pie recipe. But with greater challenges come greater rewards. No dessert is more impressive than a beautifully-prepared pastry, and that goes double when it’s vegan.
Here are two vegan pastry cookbooks written by renowned pastry chefs:
- Vegan Pastry, by Pierre Hermé
- The Vegan Pastry Bible, by Toni Rodríguez
It’s nice to know that vegans don’t need to miss out when it comes to the most gourmet of desserts. But easy and simple choices are usually the way to go, at least for everyday desserts. A scoop or two of vegan ice cream from your local natural foods store remains a tough-to-beat dessert option. And sometimes, all I really want for dessert is a square or two of dark chocolate.
Packaged Vegan Treats Available Online
Some vegan desserts are only a click away. You can order any of these products from Amazon.com:
