Anthea Cheng - Incredible plant-based desserts: colorful vegan cakes, cookies, tarts, and other epic delights

plant-Based

DESSERTS

Colorful Vegan Cakes, Cookies, Tarts, and other Epic Delights

ANTHEA CHENG

Hello! My name is Anthea and welcome! I have a blog and social media account called Rainbow Nourishments and used to have a cake business. In my daily life and in this book, I share colorful vegan treats and a flexible approach to wholesome eating. Many of the recipes in this book have options with refined sugar and without, with gluten and without you can pretty much pick your own adventure! And although most cake business owners keep their recipes a trade secret, Ill be sharing many of my secret recipes in this book.

But this isnt just a cookbook with dessert recipes. Its about connecting with loved ones and positive memories. Its about being kind to yourself, those around you, and the environment. One of my first memories with food is from when I was about five years old. My brothers and I ran around hot plates, waitstaff, and customers at my parents restaurant. We hid our soft toys in a laundry chute and found them magically transported to the basement with dirty tea towels and chef clothes. Id arrange my toys as if they were sitting in a classroom, ask what they wanted for lunch, and serve them while happily humming away. You know when you visit a restaurant or small business and you see a kid in the corner playing or bored out of their mind? Yep, that was us.

My parents migrated from Hong Kong to Sydney, Australia, in the 1970s. Although my father previously worked in a bank and my mother aspired to be an accountant or a nurse, this was impossible in a country where they werent confident with the primary language, English. Like many other Chinese migrants, they worked in hospitality to make ends meet. My father is the kind of person who likes to do everything so their restaurants provided many types of food. Their repertoire included classic Australian fish and chips, Chinese, Italian, French, Thai, Singaporean, and the list goes on.

We often talked about the family business at the dinner table, and the little time outside school hours, tutoring, and extracurricular activities was spent at the restaurant. People often romanticize about wanting to own a cafe or restaurant, but our lives were anything but glamorous! My work clothes always smelled like the deep fryer and customers cigarette smoke. My mothers knees were constantly in pain, and we barely saw our father outside the restaurant.

I was determined (or desperate) to have a career outside of food, so I studied and worked as much as humanly possible. Fortunately, I graduated with honors at university, and I had a strong career in political and humanitarian issues. I left all my friends and family to work interstate for a large federal government department.

After several years, I became extremely mentally and physically ill. I knew a lot of this was due to living in a new city away from loved ones. I needed to recover, so in 2015, I created a hobby Instagram account to connect with like-minded individuals. Rainbow Nourishments was a way for me to share the weird and wacky things I was making at home and the rainbow of ways I was nourishing myself. After a few twists and turns, I quit my secure government job to work on Rainbow Nourishments full-time.

Learning from the struggles of my parents and my childhood, I wanted to make Rainbow Nourishments less about the kitchen and more about connecting with people on a deeper level. It grew into a large social media account and blog that shared wholesome vegan recipes and promoted discussion about wellbeing and the environment. It became a cake business, providing treats to the most popular cafes in my city, for weddings, birthdays, and special events. I now develop recipes with large and small corporations, and I act as a food consultant to dessert businesses around the world. I host many pop-up events, including high teas, dinners, and workshops, in Australia and internationally. The recipes in this book come from my professional experience and also a place of love and kindness.

WHY VEGAN?

To be honest, it actually took me ten years to fully transition to a vegan lifestyle! However, it is a reminder to always listen to your body and to take things at your own pace.

When I was fourteen, I stopped consuming meat or anything with eggs and dairy in it. I disliked the taste, and I became aware of the impact it was having on my health and the environment. I knew that consuming fewer animal products would significantly decrease my high cholesterol, which I was genetically predisposed to.

However, at that age, I was living at home in a meat-orientated environment, and I was unable to maintain a balanced vegan diet with adequate food and nutrition. I wasnt eating enough and was malnourished, so my body started shutting down. Unfortunately, due to this, I went back to my prevegan ways but avoided consuming dairy. But I knew that, one day, I would try to go vegan again.

Around ten years later, I was living out of the family home and I tried to have a lifestyle that had a minimal impact on the environment. I recycled everything I could, walked almost everywhere, bought secondhand clothes, used no plastic bags, and the list goes on. Facts were emerging such as it takes six times more water to produce beef than pulses per gram of protein, as identified by UNESCOs Institute for Water Education. I realized that there was no such thing as humanely killing an animal that wants to live.

I asked myself: If Im so conscious about the environment, why am I still choosing to consume meat and animal products? Why am I choosing to do all those things to the environment?

I was still consuming animal products out of convenience because I didnt want to inconvenience non-vegan family and friends. I re-evaluated my values and started acting on them, so I became vegetarian, then vegan. For once, I was doing something that I actually believed in. And, unlike when I was in my teens, I was able to create dishes that were nutritionally balanced.

During the last five years, minimalism or the idea of consuming less has grown significantly. Plant-based diets fit perfectly in this movement as eating no animal products significantly reduces a persons carbon footprint. In addition, eating wholefoods instead of convenience foods will help minimize plastic and unnecessary packaging.

I realize that it isnt possible for everyone to adopt a plant-based diet or eat unpackaged wholefoods all the time. I think it is important to have a healthy relationship with food, listen to your own body, and have the lifestyle that is right for you. Despite this, I still think most people would benefit from a diet with more vegetables, fruit, and wholefoods. After all, it is about making changes that are sustainable and can be maintained in the long-term.